


When Darkness Falls

by Eyesforfiction



Category: Foyle's War
Genre: Anger, Apologies, Bombing, Drama, F/M, Father-Son Relationship, Letters, Male Friendship, Male-Female Friendship, Mistaken for Being in a Relationship, Physical Disability, Regret, Rescue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-08
Updated: 2019-01-17
Packaged: 2019-10-06 15:25:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 29,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17347700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eyesforfiction/pseuds/Eyesforfiction
Summary: Although he hadn't quite figured out what his son was up to, he had made one decision: he would not be telling Sam about this latest letter, no matter how many times she asked him – even if she begged.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Set after A war of Nerves. Sam and Andrew, caught out snogging on the tarmac, are now a couple.  
> As usual, Andrew is a very infrequent letter writer.

Foyle was tired – the kind of tiredness that seeps into your very bones and makes them feel like lead. A three-day assignment in Hooe, solving two murders and bringing a prominent MP to justice for fraud, had taken its toll and his middle-aged body was not coping terribly well. Sam, on the other hand, bounded up the stairs behind him, the clip of her leather-soled shoes echoing in his small entry way. At her insistence, she had carried his second small case – his larger one sat at his feet.

A yawn temporarily took over his ability to speak but he nodded as she bent to place the faded brown case beside its larger twin.  
“There you are, Sir” she said, buoyantly, as she straightened up again. The chilled air, somewhat unexpected at this time of the year, had given her cheeks a rosy glow which only added to her youthful exuberance.  
“Thank you, Sam” he replied as he placed his hat onto the second hook of the rack and smoothed down his hair.  
“Are you sure I can have the rest of the day off, Sir?” she asked, her head tilted in question. “There must be something I can do….” She twisted her wrist and looked at her watch.  
“You’ve done more than enough, Sam… and Thank you.” He shrugged slowly out of his coat, the narrow cuffs catching on his silver cufflinks.  
“But it’s only half past three, Sir” she complained, her lips pursing. “I wouldn’t know what to do with myself.”

He smiled, certain that Samantha Stewart was the only young person he knew who didn’t appreciate an early finish.  
“I’m sure you’ll think of something, Sam” he said, his voice croaky.  
“Perhaps I could write to Andrew” she suddenly blurted, a smile gracing her face. “Although,” she added as the smile faded, “he already owes me two letters, so perhaps that wouldn’t be such a good idea. I’d hate to put any pressure on him….”  
“well, …..I’m sure he’d appreciate a letter from you, Sam. I don’t think you’ve anything to worry about.”  
“I wouldn’t say I was worried, Sir” Sam mumbled, watching her own feet as she slowly made her way down his steps “Just that it’s been an awfully long time since he’s written….” She reached for the cast iron railing, using the grip as a pivot point so that she could turn herself around. “Have YOU received a letter from him, Sir?”  
He shrugged his mouth from one side of his face to the other and drew in a deep breath.  
“Noooo…..I haven’t, Sam.”  
“I expect he’s busy…..” she added, in much the same tone as her boss.  
Christopher Foyle frowned, sensing the disappointment in her voice.

 

He stepped towards her and gripped the edge of his door, holding it back in case a gust of wind blew it closed. She clasped her still gloved hands together creaking the leather around her fingers.  
“Should I take the car back to the station, Sir?” she asked, turning her head as her feet hit the bottom step.  
“Only if you don’t mind making your own way back to your billet, Sam. It’s been a long few days.” As if to illustrate his point, he ran his hand down his face, pulling the skin of his cheeks taught. “Really don’t mind if you keep the car at, uh, your billet for the night.”

She nodded and smiled although it was, at best, he thought, purely for his benefit.  
“Usual time tomorrow, Sir?”  
“Yes…..thank you, Sam.”  
She set off towards the car, clinking the keys in her hand as she walked.

 

It was just a touch after five when Foyle poured a drink and lowered himself into his chair beside the fire place. He turned to look at the empty space, the coals from the last fire he’d lit, four days before, still sitting on the edge of the grate, goading him into action. He groaned. Placing his tumbler on the table beside him, he rose and saw to the fire. He grasped half a dozen medium sized pieces of wood, drawing in a rapid breath when one gave him the gift of a fine splinter just beside the nail of his index finger.  
“Damn!” he muttered, tossing the culprit onto the top of his hastily made pyramid. He quickly pulled out the splinter and drew the injured finger up to his lips. A lit taper, held against the loose balls of newspaper, soon did its job and the inner walls of the fireplace glowed with a soft orange light.

The dancing flames, paired with the calming effects of a finger of Whiskey, were making his eyelids heavy. He breathed deeply and seriously considered just cutting himself a slice of bread for dinner, changing into his pyjamas then heading off to bed early – the thought of sleeping in a bed whose springs he didn’t have to dodge made him glad that he was finally home. Although he had never liked drawn out assignments that took him away from Hastings (and away from his own bed) this one wasn’t quite as awful as he’d feared. At least he’d had Sam as a meal companion, someone to chat to as they ate, to discuss the case (as much as he could in public bearing in mind that, if they were eating together, it had to be in the open). She had proven to be a welcome addition, both as a navigator in a village he hadn’t been to in many years, and as a friend.

He smiled to himself as he walked slowly into his kitchen, remembering the stories she’d told him during their long drives. One in particular, about her childhood exploits in the Vicarage, had made them both laugh heartily. While he was sure that she had left out quite a bit, blushing at times and turning away from him, he was, much to his surprise, happy to hear her musings. And, of course, it was the perfect opportunity for her to fill him in on what his son was up to.

 

Standing in the small doorway of his larder, he scanned the shelves. Not much on offer. The bread, last used three days ago, was, as he had predicted, quite stale and would need to be toasted. On a saucer and covered by a cloth that was once damp he found what remained of his cheese. A quick sniff made him wrinkle his nose but, if he removed the outside pieces, there’d be enough to cover two slices of toast. It took more time than usual to cut it. He had to focus quite heavily on keeping the knife well away from his fingers.

Just as he pulled the toasted pieces of bread up off the oven tray he heard the front door rattle. Placing the toast on the small wooden board beside the thin slices of cheese, he walked towards his entry way.  
“Sam?” he called, inwardly hopeful that the someone at his door might be her. “Did you find something useful to do after all?” He smirked as he reached for the handle.

Two things happened before his hand actually touched the brass fitting: a high pitched whistle sounded and he spotted a dirty and crumpled envelope on the corner of the mat at his feet.  
“Oh!” he exclaimed, cursing his tired mind.

His slight disappointment was soon erased though when he noticed the handwriting on the front of the long-travelled letter. “Andrew!” he said, his exclamation breathy. He quickly bent and picked up the letter. His thumb caressed the back flap, itching to open it but he detoured and collected his scant dinner from the kitchen before carrying it all back over to his chair by the now well settled fire.

Not waiting to fetch his letter opener, a rather lovely ivory handled one Rosalind had given to him, he tore at the thin paper with the tip of his finger.

 

'Dear Dad

Sorry I haven’t written in a while but things are mad around here at the moment.'

Foyle rolled his eyes, acknowledging the familiar pattern of correspondence between himself and his son. Two or three letters from him meant possibly one from Andrew, and that was only if he was lucky. Taking another bite of toast, the letter still held aloft in his free hand, he read on.

'As you know, Dad, I can’t tell you much (someone with a black pen would just scrap it out anyway) but I’m alright. Training’s not as exciting as flying and I’m getting a bit frustrated but I’ve met some wonderful chaps. Would you believe that some  
of the Poles and Czechs have flown more sorties than I have….and one of them’s just 21? Hard to imagine the pure hell that some of them have been through.'

Foyle closed his eyes and put down his toast, knocking the plate and making it rattle as it wobbled on the small table under the lamp.

Covering his mouth with one hand he flicked the paper between the thumb and index finger of the other. He eased himself back into the chair and lifted the letter higher so he could see the last couple of paragraphs.

'Thanks for passing on my letter to Uncle Charles. I’ve plenty of paper but precious few envelopes…..and stamps are even rarer.

One of the chaps has a birthday next week so we’re all going out to a dance. It’ll be good to see some pretty girls. One of the local lads has lined me up with a girl named Bethany…..'

Foyle frowned and blinked a couple of times. What?…. What about Sam? he silently asked the paper, pouting his lips in disappointment. Isn’t she supposed to be your best girl? At least I’m sure that’s what SHE thinks. He tilted his head and gave his scalp a scratch. Putting the paper down on the table beside his plate, he stood and walked over to pour himself another drink. The letter remained on the small side table, despite the fact that he still hadn’t finished reading.

Was he being unreasonable by expecting his son to abstain from any and all opportunities for a bit of happiness just because he’d started a relationship with his driver? It was, after all, just a dance, and he’d earned his right to have a bit of fun. He paced between the fireplace and the book shelves, turning the small glass tumbler around in his fingers. Exhaling heavily through his nose, he returned to the table that held his whiskey decanter and placed the glass noisily back onto the tray. Although he hadn’t quite figured out what his son was up to, he had made one decision: he would not be telling Sam about this latest letter, no matter how many times she asked him – even if she begged.


	2. Chapter 2

The tips of his fingers, numb from the cold, held tightly onto the telephone’s receiver. The voice coming through the earpiece had a sharpness to it, the result of a heavy workload with little to no resources.   
“Yes…..yes, I understand” Foyle spoke, taking advantage of a short gap in the monologue. “But it would help if….”  
He rolled his eyes and spread his thumb and forefinger across his brow. His feet slid out from under his desk, the toe of his right shoe touching the timber leg.

Sam gave the frame of his office door a soft knock with one hand.   
She mouthed the word “tea” as she held the chipped cup and mismatching saucer in her other hand.  
He nodded, a smile gracing his lips but he said nothing, at least not to her.

“The lorry was registered in Catsfield, Malcolm, and that’s your jurisdiction” Foyle pleaded, his vowels clipped. “So without your help I can’t move on my case.” He repositioned his feet and sat up a little straighter in his chair. Resting one elbow on the desk, he said “if we don’t find out what’s going on, the trains will be permanently affected, the three hundred odd troops that I’ve got swelling Hastings to breaking point won’t be able to move and….” He took a deep breath and, steadied his pulse. “...and the message I received was that there’s going to be something big happening in the next few days..” He paused to take in the response. “...no, I don’t want to be responsible for delaying troop movements, either…...” A sigh escaped. “….thank you, Malcolm. This afternoon will be fine…..good bye.”

As the telephone’s receiver found its cradle, Sam turned to him.  
“Are we heading out, Sir?” she asked, lifting her own cup to her lips, the pale green porcelain hiding what he knew to be a grin.  
“Well, ...not just yet.” He turned his cup in its saucer, bringing the small handle to the other side. “I’m waiting on a bit more information.” He lifted the cup and took a sip.  
“Milner said that there’s been some materials stolen from the rail yards at Three Oaks” she casually said as she sat in one of the visitors’ chairs beside his desk.  
“Did he?” Foyle shrugged his mouth to one side. Sam didn’t need encouragement, her enthusiasm alone was enough to fuel her curiosity. He took another sip of his tea as he waited for the rest of her theory to come.  
“What would anybody want to steal at a rail yard, Sir?” she asked, resting her almost empty cup on one knee.

Standing to open a filing cabinet drawer, he answered. “Hundreds of pounds worth of steel, copper...even rubber. All high in demand…..and worth much more on the black market.” He slapped a heavy buff coloured file down on the desk.  
“But wouldn’t somebody see, Sir? I mean,” she started, throwing down the last of her tea, “wouldn’t there be night guards….late trains…..and they’d make a heck of a racket.”  
“Mmmm...” Sitting back down on his chair, he reached into a drawer beside his left knee.  
“Unless...it’s an inside job! Do you think it might be, Sir?”  
“Well, as you said, pretty difficult to get away without alerting somebody.”  
“And they’d need transport” she added, the smile on her face telegraphing her excitement. “Not to mention half a dozen strong men to do the lifting. Hard to miss that, Sir.”  
“Right.”  
“Who reported the stuff missing, Sir?” she asked, her eyes trained on his face.  
“The, uh, Station Master, Sam.” He watched as the smile left her face.  
“So I guess we can rule him out as a suspect” she grumbled, running her finger around the rim of her cup.  
“Mmmm...probably.”  
“That makes things a bit more tricky, doesn’t it, Sir?” She looked up at him imploringly.  
“Well, it does but..” he nodded to a young Constable, nervously hovering at his door, a written note in his hand. “There was a lorry spotted in the area and we have its registration and...” he added, quickly perusing the note, “….an address.”

Sam quickly stood, almost knocking her empty tea cup to floor. “So, shall I get the car, Sir?” She was half way out the door when she stopped and doubled back to retrieve his cup, too.   
“Yes, please, Sam” he told her, hiding his smile behind his hand. “You, uh, might want to see if Milner’s ready to go.”  
“Yes, Sir” she quickly acknowledged, giving him a tight nod. “Right away, Sir.”

 

Milner gripped the back of Sam’s seat, squeezing the padded leather a little harder as they followed a sharp bend in the road.  
“How much steel are we talking about, Sir?” Sam suddenly asked, the sound of her voice a little jarring in the silence of the car.  
“What?” Foyle retorted, drawing himself out of his thoughts.  
“Well I was just thinking, Sir…..”   
Foyle smirked and turned to look at his driver, hoping to catch her eye but she was much too engrossed in the task of driving to notice.   
“Where would they store the loot, Sir?” Sam’s head turned slightly, her chin jutting out. “I mean...it’s not something that you can just bury in the back garden, is it?”  
“No.”  
“Someone must have seen a great big pile of steel and copper…..mustn’t they, Sir?” She slid her hand around the wheel, adjusting her grip as they pulled away from a crossroad.  
“Plenty of people who would turn a blind eye to crime, Sam.”  
“Too many...” she mumbled, not letting her eyes leave the road.

“Quite a bit of woodland around, Sir” Milner added, a moment later. “It’s possible that any stolen goods could be hidden deep in the woods.” He turned in his seat and pointed to one of the many narrow and almost hidden lane ways leading away from the main road. “And if the lorry is well know in the area, no one would suspect anything. The perfect cover.”   
Foyle gave a nod, mumbled something to himself and turned to look out of his window.

 

Foyle took his hand out of his pocket and gave a quick rap on the old wooden door. It wasn’t long before he heard movement on the other side, a shuffling of feet and the clinking of what sounded like a large bunch of keys. The door slowly opened and a rush of comparatively warmer air hit him.  
“Yes?” the gruff voice asked.  
“My name’s Foyle….I’m a policeman” Foyle replied, covertly looking beyond the solid chap’s shoulders into the small cottage.  
“You don’t much look like a policeman” the man said, squinting his eyes and pointing to Foyle’s open coat with the mouth piece of his worn out pipe.  
“Detective.”  
“What can I do for you….Detective?” he asked before returning the pipe to the corner of his mouth.  
“Is that yours?” Foyle asked, pointing to the tail end of a green and black lorry parked beside the cottage.  
“Aye.” The man replied although his face remained neutral.  
“And your name?” Foyle asked, raising his eyebrows to add a bit of gravitas to the question.  
“Flaxton….Trevor Flaxton.”  
“Those tyres might need a bit of air, Mr Flaxton” Foyle suggested, crouching to take a closer look at the rubber. “Drive a lot?”  
“Aye, it’s my job. I do deliveries” Flaxton replied, placing himself between a now standing Foyle and the lorry.  
“Who for?”  
“Whoever needs ‘em” he answered, shrugging his shoulders.  
“On your own?” Foyle asked as he walked towards the opposite side of the vehicle.  
“Nephew helps….some of the local lads when I need ‘em”  
“This nephew have a name?”  
“Teddy Flaxton…...my brother’s boy. His father….my older brother…...died as a result of being gassed in the first war.”  
Foyle nodded as he inspected the deep groves and scratches that lined the interior of the lorry.  
“What was the last thing you carried, Mr Flaxton? Looks like it left a bit of damage.”  
“Farm machinery” Flaxton quickly hurled back, fishing a box of matches out of his pocket and relighting his pipe. “You’ve got quite an interest in my lorry, Mr Foyle. What’s this all about?”  
“Just routine enquiries, Mr Flaxton.” Foyle turned and put his hands slowly into his pockets. “Mind if my Sergeant and I take a look around?”  
“If you must” the now agitated man replied as great plumes of blue-grey smoke engulfed his face. He turned on his heel and began the journey back to his front door. “Don’t know what you hope to find” he mumbled and left Foyle standing alone.

From over the small ridge, Milner and Sam appeared.  
“It’s the same registration plate number, Sir” Milner commented, his voice kept low.  
“Mmmm...and look at the tyres.”  
Milner nodded.  
“Sir?!” Sam cried, her attention obviously taken.  
“What is it, Sam?” Foyle asked as he walked over to stand beside her.  
“What’s that?” her slim finger pointed towards the dark corner of the canvas covered lorry. “There’s something shiny...and long.” She grasped the handle above her left ear and began to lever herself up onto the back of the vehicle. The rusty metal frame groaned at the addition of her weight.  
“Just be careful” he demanded, his hands hovering beside her hunched shoulders as she climbed.  
Nodding, Sam made her way to the front. She kicked the folded canvas at her feet as she moved further into the darkness. A puff of dust, presumably from within the folds rose up and made her cough.  
“You alright, Sam?” Milner asked, placing his hand on the steel frame near the tail gate.  
“Yes!” came the confident reply. “It smells like….coal dust, Sir.”  
“Yes, I smell it, too. Just fetch whatever you saw and then...come on out, will you?” Despite the somewhat covert nature of their activities, Foyle’s voice had grown louder, his anxiety increasing.  
“It was just here…..” she mused, running her hand along the wooden panel beside her for stability. “Ahh” she suddenly exclaimed and soon appeared in front of the men, a smile on her face and the evidence held aloft in triumph.  
“Give me your hand, Sam” Milner suggested, raising his right hand and re-positioning his foot. As soon as her feet were back on the ground, she showed them what she’d found.  
“I think it’s copper, Sir” she declared, not quite managing to hide her pride.   
“Looks like it” Foyle confirmed, taking the short length of metal out of her open palm.  
“Looks like it’s brand new, Sir” Milner added, receiving it from his boss and slipping it into the pocket of his coat.

 

“Coal dust...” Sam said, following after her policemen, “...and copper. Clues, Sir?”   
“Mmmm” came the reply. “Could be.”  
They walked further, Foyle taking a slightly longer path than he had to so as to avoid a steep rise covered with loose gravel. Sam, less inclined to hide her consideration for Milner’s lack of stability, fed her hand around his elbow and walked with him up the incline.

 

“What exactly are we looking for, Sir?” she asked, missing the smile that Milner gave her.  
“Not sure” Foyle replied, stopping at the top of a small hill.   
Having been released from Sam’s guidance, Milner followed.  
“Doesn’t seem to be anything much at all, Sir” Milner pondered, shielding his eyes from the sun with a hand under the brim of his hat.  
“No….see anything, Sam?” Foyle asked, half in jest, a smile on his face. His grin faded quickly though when he noticed that she wasn’t in sight. “Sam?!” he called again, this time a lot louder.  
“Down here, Sir!” came the reply from a valley to his left, a handful of trees separating them.  
“What have you found, Sam?” he called, edging his way down the slope.  
“Well, I’m not entirely sure, Sir.”  
“Wait there, Sam. On my way.”

 

“When did it rain last, Sir?” she asked as Foyle and Milner approached.  
“Um, last night, I think.”  
She nodded towards a narrow road that weaved its way through a lightly wooded paddock below. Where the trees sheltered the ground from the rain, tyre marks could be seen in the mud. “Whatever vehicle made these, Sir,” she suggested, “was either a lot heavier than the width of the axle suggests or it was carrying a heck of a lot of weight.”  
“Right.”  
“And it obviously made these tracks recently.”  
Slipping her slender body through a narrow gap in the trees, she started to walk along the road.  
“Where are you going, Sam?” Foyle asked, frowning.  
“Don’t you want to know where it goes, Sir? It could be another clue.”  
“Could be, but, uh, not now, Sam” he said, his tone making the decision quite clear. “We don’t know how far it goes, or where, and it’ll be dark soon. Best that we stop for now and come back another day, don’t you think?”  
“Yes, Sir.”


	3. Chapter 3

Sam’s breath crystallised in the chilled air and she bounced from one foot to the other.   
“Good morning, Sir” she said, her voice shaky.  
“Good morning, Sam” Foyle said as he joined her on his front steps. Turning to lock his front door, he asked “Where’s your coat?”  
“Mrs Broadhurst is mending it, Sir.”  
“Is that your landlady?” he enquired, following his driver down the stairs and towards the car.  
“Mmm hmm.” They entered, both doors shutting at almost the exact same moment. “I caught the pocket on a nail, Sir” she explained as she started the engine. Warm air from the car’s heater quickly filled the cabin and Sam’s voice lost its rattle. “Mrs Broadhurst offered to sew it up for me.” Her face gained a smile. “The only problem is, Sir, she’s not the fastest seamstress in all the world.”  
“Well, if it’s not finished soon….I’m sure I’ve got a spare coat somewhere in the house. You can use it….while yours is being repaired….if you like.”  
“That’s very kind of you, Sir.” Sam beamed. “Thank you” she added as they pulled away from the side of the road.  
“Pleasure” he mumbled.

 

Milner’s house was a little way out of town. A newly married man on a sergeant’s wage generally takes what he can get and, for him, that meant a two bedroom flat at the bottom of a hill about three quarters of a mile out of town. As they slowly made their way to his house to collect him, Sam turned to Foyle and smiled.  
“You know, I did end up writing to Andrew, Sir” she told him.   
“Did you?” He turned and looked out of the window, hoping that she wouldn’t see him wince.  
“Mmm….I did. Actually, I took your advice, Sir. You were right. My reasoning was a bit selfish and …...he would appreciate a letter….so I wrote one.”  
“Well,” Foyle replied, suddenly feeling hemmed in. “That’s not quite what I….I didn’t mean that you were being ….” He shifted his weight in the seat, making the leather creak.  
“Don’t worry, I assured him that I was looking after you, Sir” she declared with a cheeky smile, which only increased his unease and he ran a hand along the back of his collar. He swallowed and held his breath, silently grateful that their journey was not a long one.

 

“You wait in the car, Sam” he finally said, reaching forward to grasp the door’s handle as they pulled up outside Milner’s front door. “Can’t have you getting cold.”  
“No, Sir. Thank you very much, Sir.”

 

“Good morning, Sam” Milner said as he folded his long body into the back seat of the Wolseley. His long coat, loosely bundled, was tossed onto the far side of the seat and his hat was dropped onto the top.   
“Good morning, Milner.”  
“It’s certainly much warmer in here, Sam” he concluded, firmly shutting the door behind him. Looking over the back of Sam’s seat he asked “where’s your coat, Sam?”  
“It’s a long story…..” she replied, giving Foyle a quick glance as he, too, got into the car.  
“Well, if you get cold….you can have mine.”  
“Thank you” she mumbled, a slight blush rising in her cheeks.  
The road was winding and the light rain that they’d had the night before had made the road slippery so the going was slow. To make the best use of his time, Foyle turned himself in his seat and spoke to Milner, both men offering their different theories on how the goods might have been stolen. Although their discourse was at times animated, there was a deeply set and mutually expressed level of respect in their conversation.

“Well, that’s odd, Sir” Sam suddenly said, turning her head and having a second look, this time in the car’s oval wing mirror.  
“What is, Sam?” Foyle asked, stopping mid-sentence and turning to look at his driver.  
“It’s barely after nine, Sir, and there were two tractors, a forklift and about seven young men all outside the pub” she explained and slowed down to stop against a wide shoulder, the angle of the road giving them an unobstructed view of the scene while not drawing any unwanted attention.  
“Mmmm….bit strange…. repairs, maybe?” Foyle suggested, craning his neck to take in the view.  
“This area has had quite a few raids, Sir.” Milner offered. “The railway yards make the village an unintended target.”  
“The building doesn’t look damaged, Sir” Sam observed, still using the mirror to save her neck.  
“No….it doesn’t.”  
“And,” Sam added, “I’d say most of those boys are underage, Sir.”   
“Well, they’re not actually drinking, Sam, so there’s little anybody can do.” He lifted back the sleeve of his coat to expose the face of his watch. “We’d best keep going. We should have been at the rail yards ten minutes ago.”  
“Oh, yes. Sorry, Sir” Sam replied, throwing her whole shoulder into the strength it took to put the car back into gear. “The roads...” she explained. “...They’re slippery and I thought it best to slow down.”  
“Yes” Foyle affirmed, turning himself back around. “Always best if you get us there in one piece, Sam.”  
“Don’t worry” she told him, straightening her shoulders, “you can depend on me. I won’t let you down.”  
For second time on this journey, he shuddered.

 

The Station Master, a stout man in his late fifties, led Foyle and Milner to a rather non-descript warehouse on the edge of the yard. His name was Timothy Patterson. Foyle had read the file that Reid had been able to get for him from a contact in the War Office. Although he had served in the first war, and had been decorated for bravery, he had fought without restraint to keep his three sons out this one, even writing to the War Office asking for an exemption for one of his sons on the grounds that he had received a scholarship to study law in London. Of course, like so many other similarly worded requests from around the country, it had had absolutely no effect on his sons’ call up letters and all three of his boys had been conscripted. One, his youngest, was at this time still classified as missing, and one other was somewhere in France. Goodness only knew where the third was. Although Foyle felt for the man, he tried not to let it affect his judgement. The pain of loss, and the bitterness expressed towards the war had been used by many people in the past to justify sabotage, and Mr Patterson was the perfect candidate. 

“It’s meant to look just like an ordinary shed, Mr Foyle” Patterson remarked as they approached the wide double doors.   
No markings or name plates existed and, as he looked up into the cloudless sky, Foyle could see why.   
“As you can imagine, we’re a bit of a target here” he told them, and fished around in his pocket. He pulled out a large brass key that was attached to a cord. The dark brown twine looped around the clasp of his braces and was just long enough to allow the wearer to unlock a door at waist height. The large padlock snapped open and the heavy chain that held the doors shut fell to the ground, snaking itself into a pile. “And this” Patterson said, pulling back the first door, “was the sight that greeted me on Monday morning.” He threw open the second door to reveal a completely empty space, save for a few tools and a roll of canvas. Their foot steps echoed as they all entered. Foyle turned and gave Sam a signal, a look, a nod that meant ‘take a look around’.

“The paperwork’s still in my office” the Station Master said, bending to pick up the chain. “I can show you if you like….but we had three sheets of half inch thick steel, all ten by six, twenty feet of copper wiring for the electrics, and rubber …..for the door seals.”  
“And...” Milner began to ask, looking in one of the corners, “...it’s all gone? You haven’t been able to find any of it?”  
“No...none” Patterson replied, a hint of shame in his voice. “I can’t tell you much more than I told your chap that took the call. The place was locked from the moment the materials arrived. There’s only one key and I have it” he explained, holding it up. “It was one of the many conditions that the war Office put on me. I wasn’t to tell anyone that the stock had even been ordered let alone when it arrived or where it was being stored. They even bring in their own contractors, you see, so no one in the village should have even known it was here.”

Foyle nodded and watched as Sam walked out of the building. She quietly slipped through the open door and disappeared around the side.

“And who has access to that key?” Milner asked, pointing to the Station Master’s hand.  
“Well, just me” he replied. “I keep it tethered here” he told them, pulling on the cord until it was taut, “and when I’m going home, I lock it in the key cabinet in my office.” He reached around and pulled one of the wide doors to the centre, indicating that both the inspection and their conversation had come to its end.   
“And who,” Milner asked as he stepped out of the building, “has access to your office, Mr Patterson?”  
“Just me and …..Mrs Carseldine” he said, his head down.

 

Foyle took a quick step back, allowing the Station Master to swing the second door back into place.   
“Ohhhh!” came the surprised expression from behind him. “Oh my!” the woman’s voice declared, the sound high in pitch.  
Foyle rose up onto his toes and spun around, instantly increasing the distance between himself and whoever it was that he’d bumped into.  
“Oh, uh, I am sorry” he stuttered and felt his cheeks flush. “Are you alright?”  
“Yes,...yes” the younger woman assured him. She brushed down her jacket with her one free hand.  
“I didn’t...um” Foyle said, his voice lowering so that only she could hear. He put out his hand, letting his fingers lightly touch her forearm.  
“Hurt me?...” she asked, rising to her full height which, even in heels, made her head level with Foyle’s shoulder. “No, I’m fine.” She offered a quick smile.  
“Sure?” he asked, his voice still low. He dropped his hand away from her arm and slipped it smoothly into his pocket.  
“Yes.”

 

Patterson came and stood next to Foyle, his eyes fixed on the policeman’s face.  
“This is Mrs Carseldine” he said. “My secretary.”  
“I saw the policemen here, Mr Patterson” she offered, shifting her weight from one foot to the other and making her shoes scrape noisily on the concrete below them. “I thought you might need my help.” She passed a small dark green folder to Patterson, her fingers spread against the centre fold so that when the Station Master took hold, their fingers brushed.   
He swallowed quickly and gave her a tense “thank you.” Turning his body side-on, his eyes avoiding her face, he flicked through the pages. His hand shook as he slipped one piece of paper from the pile. 

“There’s your list, Mr Foyle” Patterson declared, in a voice that was much too loud, and turned his back on Mrs Carseldine. She quietly tutted but remained in the one spot. Foyle couldn’t help but notice her stoic effort to keep her emotions intact.  
“Ahh. Thank you” Foyle said. He smiled and held the sheet in both hands. After a moment he asked “mind if I hold onto this for a little while? We’ll return it to you as soon as we’re finished with it.”  
“Don’t mind” Patterson told them as he gave his head a quick shake. His hand fumbled with the key in his pocket. 

Foyle folded the paper into thirds and slipped it into the pocket inside his jacket.  
“The, uh...timber” Foyle began and nodded towards the now chained doors.   
“What?” Patterson queried, his eyes narrowing. “What timber?”  
“The timber that was added to your order” Foyle replied, glancing at the now nervous looking secretary. “It’s right down the bottom,….easy to miss,…..written by a different person if I’m not mistaken. I didn’t hear you mention it.”  
“But I didn’t…..” Patterson mumbled and walked over towards Foyle. “...I didn’t order any timber, Mr Foyle.”   
“Well,…..somebody did” he replied, tapping his jacket pocket.

Patterson pulled over a wooden crate. He turned it, making it stand up on its edge. He laid the file on the make-shift desk and opened it. A sudden gust of wind made him use one hand as a paper weight. With the other he flicked through the contents, a licked finger aiding him.  
“Mrs Carseldine…?” he called over his shoulder, his voice harsh. “These two orders are different!” He held up a pale green slip, the morning light making the ink shine. “There’s no mention of timber on this one.”

Silence was his reply. All three men looked up from their task but Mrs Carseldine was nowhere to be seen.  
“Did it arrive, Mr Patterson?” Milner asked.  
“Hmmm wha?” Patterson mumbled in reply, his eyes still scanning the area.  
“The timber. Did it arrive?”  
“I really …...I can’t be certain” Patterson told them as he leaned on the crate, his weight making the structure creak. He rapidly shoved the papers back into the cardboard file and slapped the cover down. “Just excuse me, gentleman” he stammered and hurried off back to his office, the file tucked under one arm.

Foyle rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet and gave Milner a sideways glance.  
“Mmmm” Milner hummed, watching Patterson as he hurried back towards the station’s office. “I wonder if Sam’s had more luck, Sir?”  
“She generally does” Foyle replied with a smile.

 

Milner and Foyle walked beside the rail tracks at the siding, Foyle slowing his pace so that Milner could keep up. They followed the perimeter of the yard, keeping the high wire fence to their right.   
“I haven’t seen any vehicles around, have you, Sir?” Milner asked, suddenly stopping. He turned himself around and gave the yard a quick scan.  
“No...I haven’t” Foyle replied.  
“I wonder why that gate’s open, then” Milner said, pointing to the opening in the fence. 

The gate, just wide enough for one vehicle to pass through, had been propped open, a small log leaning up against the wire. Foyle strode over to the opening and looked up. An overgrown Buckthorn, its thick branches weighing down the fence, provided enough cover to make the opening almost invisible from both the air and, it appeared, from the Station Master’s office. It seemed improbable that a man who put so much care into securing a single key would tolerate such a blatant breach of security. The same thick cover of leaves, slowly making their yearly transition to a rich golden yellow, had shielded the ground from recent rain. Tyre tracks that matched those that Sam had spotted at Flaxton’s farm were now visible here. One lot were shallow but a second set were much deeper with clear evidence that the extra weight had caused the wheels to slip in the mud.

“Sir!” Milner suddenly called, pulling Foyle out of his train of thought.  
“What is it?”   
Milner strode towards an old stump that sat just outside the fence. Its top surface was worn, having clearly been in the weather for many years.   
“Look” said Milner. He pushed aside the heavy foliage and stooped to avoid a low branch. He reached for something. Planting his good foot on the slippery ground, he leaned in. Pulling back away he held up his prize. “Sam’s cap!” he declared, a frown on his face. “Looks like it was placed there neatly, just for us to find.”  
Foyle marched over to his sergeant, his brow furrowed. He touched the brim with his index finger and pivoted around.  
“Surely if it had fallen...in a struggle..” Milner said, his breath getting caught on the last word, “it would have been on the ground.”  
“Mmm” Foyle mumbled. “Sam!” he called, the tone of his voice emitting a mixture of frustration and fear.

No answer came. Foyle tensed his jaw and looked around. Please, God, let her be alright, he pleaded, silently directing his anxiety heaven-ward. He knew, all too well, how desperate black marketeers could be, how far they were prepared to stretch what remained of their scruples in order to get just a few extra pounds. A beautiful, fresh faced young woman in uniform would be a prize too tempting to let go of. He cursed under his breath.

“There’s footprints here, Sir” Milner said in a voice that Foyle considered to be far too calm. His own heart was racing and he slipped a shaking hand into his pocket. “They look like women’s shoes” Milner stated, his attention on the muddy ground below.  
“See what you can find” Foyle hurriedly said. Then, spinning around, added “I’m going to go and see Patterson. I have a feeling he isn’t telling me the whole story.”  
“Yes, Sir” Milner replied, and headed off down the narrow laneway, carefully following the shallow footprints. 

 

Foyle walked along the outside of the fence, leaving the rail yards behind, and headed up the rise towards the small station. As he got closer, he could hear raised voices, both a man’s and a woman’s and by the sound of them, neither was happy. He picked up his pace. At the end of the path was a steep flight of concrete stairs, flanked on both sides by small but overgrown gardens, the overhanging branches masking his approach. He stood two steps from the top, hidden from view, and watched.

“What have you done, Doris?” the man asked, his voice loud.   
“I’ve done what I needed to do, Tim” the lady replied as she walked towards Patterson. She put a hand on his arm and stroked his sleeve tenderly. “The money I’ve made from this will set us up, my love…..and then we can be together...”  
“No, Doris!” the agitated Station master replied and pulled away from her. “You don’t understand! We CANNOT BE TOGETHER! I am MARRIED!”  
“You don’t love her, Tim….not like you love me”  
Patterson paced along the small platform, his feet scraping.  
“The police….the two that are here” Patterson began to explain, running a palm across his forehead. “They know that something’s not right. They’ll find out.” He stopped his pacing and turned his face to look at Mrs Carseldine.  
“They won’t find out, Tim” she protested. “There’s nothing they can pin on us, my darling...”  
“Us?” Patterson shouted, gripping her shoulders firmly in his hands. “There is no ‘us’, you infuriating woman!”

 

Foyle had seen, and heard, enough. The evidence against the two of them was more than sufficient to charge them with a whole string of offences and, with Patterson being a public official, they would both be in a serious amount of trouble. He squared his shoulders and planted his foot onto the next step. He took a breath and was about to announce his presence when another set of voices caught his attention.

 

“Just come over to the car, Sam” Milner suggested, his voice quiet, his tone gentle. “It’ll be alright.”  
“Is he really?” Sam asked, sounding nervous. “Do you think he’ll...”  
Foyle instantly forgot about the mismatched lovebirds and their illicit affair. They certainly weren’t going anywhere, and time was something that he had to spare. He turned and briskly walked back down the stairs, leaving duty behind.

“Sam!” he called when he’d almost reached the car. By now he was travelling at quite a clip and his breathing was rapid. 

As she heard her name called, Sam paused and turned, inadvertently showing him the results of her expedition. On seeing the evidence, his heart rate instantly went up. She had two scraped knees, the hem of her skirt was torn, and both of her hands were covered in mud.  
“Are you….alright?” he asked, his hands touching her shoulders as he looked into her eyes. “What happened?” Although his question was aimed at Sam, his eyes flicked up to Milner, begging him to respond.  
Milner gave a nod, signalling that he understood, but went around and opened Sam’s door first.   
“Why don’t you sit down, Sam?” Milner suggested and put a hand under her elbow.  
“I really am fine, Sir” Sam muttered. After finding her seat, she bent and inspected her knees. She licked her finger and, through the now gaping hole in her stocking, she wiped away the dried blood and dirt. 

“After I left you, Sir” she said, now busying her fingers with the torn hem of her skirt, “I walked around the back of the building. I thought I might see what was there. It’s amazing what people will hide in places that they don’t expect people to go to.” She placed her cap in her lap and began to wipe her hands on her handkerchief.  
“Then what?” Foyle prompted and handed her his own much larger handkerchief.  
“Then I heard an engine start, Sir. It sounded like a lorry and I turned to see where it was coming from. That’s when I noticed the open gate, Sir.”  
“Right.”  
“There were tracks in the mud, Sir” she explained, daintily spitting on the corner of Foyle’s handkerchief and scrubbing at the remaining mud. “They looked identical to the ones we saw at Flaxton’s farm and….”  
“So you went in to investigate?” he asked, his fingers furrowing trails in his forehead. “On your own?…..when nobody knew where you were?”  
“I did leave you a clue, Sir” she added, almost in apology. She tapped the crown of her cap.  
“Well, I’d hardly call that a clue, Sam…..didn’t really, uh, put our minds at ease, did it?”  
“But I put it on the outside of the fence so you’d know that that’s where I was headed and,” she added, seemingly quite chuffed at her own ingenuity, “I faced it in the direction that I was going in...down the road.”  
“Well that, Miss Stewart, was not one of your best ideas” he cut in. He took a step back and, leaning heavily on the door’s frame, drew in a deep breath. “In fact it was quite foolish. You could have been seriously hurt, Sam. I mean...”  
“Actually, Sir, I thought that I might be able to get you some pretty valuable evidence..”  
“What evidence might that be, Sam?” he asked, his patience almost completely used up.  
“I spotted the lorry, the same one we saw at Mr Flaxton’s farm. It was being driven by a young lad and he had a passenger. The passenger called him either Eddy or Teddy, Sir...I couldn’t be sure.”  
Foyle gave her a sideways glance and narrowed his eyes.  
“Anyway, I snuck around to the back of the lorry to see what they had loaded in the back.”  
“You what? Sam!” He shoved both of his hands into his pockets, the force almost busting the linings.  
Completely ignoring his protests, Sam continued. “I climbed into the back.”  
“Of a moving vehicle?!” By now he was pacing, his steps swift and his breathing rapid.  
“Well, it wasn’t moving at the time, Sir…...that happened later.”  
Foyle stopped and looked up, giving her a wide eyed stare of disbelief.  
“It was full of timber, Sir. Long slats of timber.” She held up her hands and used her fingers to show the width and depth of the lumber. “It was at least two inches thick, Sir, and each piece was well over six feet long.”  
“Then what did you do?”  
“Well, Sir, that’s when the lorry started to move. Quite quickly actually.” She folded the now filthy handkerchief and slipped it into the pocket of her shirt. “I had to jump out...”  
“You jumped out of a moving vehicle?! What were you thinking, Sam?”   
“Well Sir, I was thinking that I either had to jump out or…..allow myself to be kidnapped.”  
Foyle resumed his pacing. When his back was turned he mumbled a few choice words, none of which he would normally say in front of a lady but…..my God, he was angry. What was Sam thinking? She wasn’t thinking much at all, that was certain. She was being bloody irresponsible, putting herself at great risk, giving him and Milner a hell of a fright and for what?...stolen timber?

 

“Is that how you got the scraped knees?” he asked, forcing down his bile so that his words didn’t sound completely heartless.   
“Yes” she admitted. “And I tore my skirt. It took me a while to walk back….and then I saw Milner.”  
“And I was very pleased to see you, Sam” Milner said, reaching in and putting a hand on her shoulder. He gave it a squeeze.  
“Yes...” Foyle suddenly remarked. “Yes, I’m pleased Milner saw you, too.”  
“Doesn’t seem like it” she whispered, her head bowed, her hands in her lap.  
“Of course I am…...” he mumbled to no one in particular. “Let’s get going, shall we?….let’s get you home, Sam.” He walked around to his side of the car and opened the door. “Oh, that is if….you’re feeling up to it, Sam.”  
“I’m fine, Sir” Sam declared and reached forward to turn the engine over.

The drive home was awkward to say the least. Not one word left Sam’s mouth, and Foyle’s eyes never left his window. It was the longest fifty minutes of his life.


	4. Chapter 4

His watch told him that it was just a touch after a quarter to nine. Sgt Rivers’ morning report, detailing the activities of the previous night’s shift, sat on his desk and a tepid cup of tea, that he’d not had the stomach to finish, kept it company. 

Truth be told, he’d not slept well last night and he was glad that he’d relieved Sam of the burden of picking him up that morning. Whether it was to assuage his own guilt or to give her a little extra portion of rest, he wasn’t sure but he’d asked her not to call at his house but to instead meet him at the station this morning at nine.

As it happened he was well and truly awake by five and here at his desk by half past six – plenty of time to brood and stew as he mentally went back over his actions of the previous day. He wasn’t proud of himself. He’d reacted badly and let his emotions rule – not, by any means, a regular occurrence, he thought, but still….there was no excusing his behaviour. He promised himself that when Sam arrived, or more to the point if she arrived (after all, who would volunteer to turn up for a second dose of the kind of medicine he’d dealt to her yesterday), he’d apologise and perhaps even……

“Sir?” came the voice at his door. “Sgt Rivers said that you wanted to see me just as soon as I arrived.”  
Sam stood at his door, both of her knees bandaged, the very edge of the dressings visible under her uniform and the fine stitching evident at the hem of her skirt told him that she had repaired the tear but the most worrying aspect of her appearance wasn’t either of these, it was her face. Clearly she had been crying, her eyes were red and her cheeks had that blotchy appearance that only comes after a profound release of emotions.

“Ah, yes. I did” he replied, fumbling with his chair as he stood to speak. “Listen, I, uh….” he began and walked around to the front of his own desk. He pulled over a couple of chairs, one in each hand, and gestured for her to take one. “Would you like to sit down?”  
“Actually, Sir...” she replied, glancing between the chair, him and her knees, “...it’s easier to stand...”  
“Right” he said and pushed one of the chairs back against the wall with his foot. “There’s something I’d like to say….”

A confident knock sounded at his door and an obvious clearing of the throat followed. Both Foyle and Sam looked over.  
“Sir,” said Rivers, an apologetic look on his face, “Sorry to disturb you but there’s a Mr Ian Hawton here..”  
“Oh, the, uh, chap that has the hardware in St Leonards...”  
“That’s the one, Sir” Rivers confirmed. “Anyway he says he wants to speak to you, Sir. It’s about an order that’s not quite….well, not quite sitting right.”

Foyle nodded, and reached for the handle of his door. His intention was to excuse himself for a few minutes, ask Rivers to make the chap a cup of tea, and continue his conversation with his driver but to his great disappointment he noticed that Sam had slipped away. Damn!

Foyle sighed and pushed in the small wooded doorstop with the toe of his shoe, keeping his office door open  
“Send him in, Sgt” Foyle said and walked back over to his desk.  
“Right you are, Sir” Rivers responded and a moment later Hawton was sitting in the chair in his office.

“Sorry for the disturbance, Mr Foyle” Hawton said, lowering himself slowly into the chair. “I wouldn’t have bothered you but...”  
“Not at all...how can I help?”  
“Well,” he said, placing his hands in his lap, “we’re told to report anything that’s...suspicious, you know, out of the ordinary, just in case it’s something to do with German spies or what-not.”  
“And you’ve seen something that...might be suspicious?”  
“Well, you see, a little while ago, I got an order from the local Home Guard regiment. Quite hush-hush. They were doing some training….or an exercise….I’m not quite sure but they wanted some pylons.”  
“Uh, pylons?” Foyle questioned, his eyes squinting. This chap was quickly losing him.  
“Yes, Mr Foyle.” Hawton stood, his feet shoulder width apart, and he made his arms into a hoop shape to illustrate his point. “These were about eighteen inches in diameter and about six feet tall.” He re-took his seat and continued. “They were going to use them to make the framework for a bridge but just the day after I placed the order with the government supplier – and all the kerfuffle that went with that - the Colonel said they weren’t the right size….so I found myself with four pylons that I had to get rid of.” Hawton threw his hands in the air.  
“Right. You couldn’t um, cancel the order?”  
“Nah. Too late”  
“I see.”  
“The problem was,” Hawton explained, sitting forward in his chair, “that they had quite a specific function...the only reason you’d need such long pylons was if you intended to build a span...or a bridge. You can’t really do anything else with them….except chop them up for firewood, but that would make for a rather expensive fire, Mr Foyle.”  
“Mmmm. Indeed, it would.”  
“And apart from that,” Hawton pondered, looking out of Foyle’s window, “where would someone get the other materials they’d need to build a bridge? The war Office has such a tight grip on materials these days. The amount of timber you’d need to build a bridge…..well,” he said, pausing for thought. He splayed his fingers, one at a time, as if he was counting out figures in his head. “You’d need a lot...that’s for sure.”

Before Hawton could continue his story Sam approached Foyle’s office door, a tea tray in her hands. He gave her what he hoped was a soft smile before quickly clearing a space on his desk. She entered and slid the tray onto the corner, next to Rivers’ report.  
“Thank you, Sam” he whispered.

As if the interruption hadn’t even happened, Hawton took off again where he’d left off.  
“Next thing I know, I’ve got Trevor Flaxton in my shop asking how much I’d sell them for.” Hawton smiled and nodded as Sam offered tea. With the cup resting on his knee, he leaned forward. “Now, Mr Foyle, what I’d like to know is how did Flaxton know what the Home Guard was up to -I certainly didn’t tell anyone, they made me sign two different government forms….and what in the world would Flaxton want with pylons? As far as I know his land doesn’t even have water on it – he’s been fighting old Clarkson for access to his river for years.”  
Foyle pouted his lips and rocked his head back and forth.   
“You don’t think it’s suspicious, Mr Foyle?” Hawton questioned, sliding his now empty cup back onto the tray  
“Well, ...”

Sam suddenly put down her cup, the saucer making quite a clang as she placed it next to the tray. Both men turned to look at her.  
“I’ll be right back, Sir” she declared and hobbled out of his office, her stiff knees making the going slow. Foyle grimaced.

Within a few minutes she had returned, her hands holding some of Sgt Rivers’ local maps. They were many years old and stamped on every corner with ‘property of Hastings Constabulary’ in faded grey-black ink.

Foyle quickly cleared his desk, making space for Sam to lay out the maps.  
“Mr Hawton” Sam prompted, spreading the thin paper and using the pencil holder as a paper weight to stop the whole thing from springing back into a tight curl. “Do you know where Mr Flaxton’s farm begins and ends?”  
“Well, that’s easy” he told her, standing to see the faint map. My Uncle’s farm used to butt onto his.” He ran a finger along a prominent ridge. “Here’s where it starts” Hawton said and leaned closer. He continued tracing out his path until the map showed a secondary road. “The boundary follows Carter Road then doubles back around these mountains.” Hawton sat back down in his chair. “That’s how I know he doesn’t have any water.”  
“Well” Foyle said, leaning over his desk and shaking the man’s hand. “Thank you for coming to see me….. and for your help.” The gesture brought their conversation to an end and Hawton left.

 

Leaning heavily on her boss’s desk, her palms flat against the map, Sam studied the information below her. Her brow furrowed and her lips pursed. Suddenly her eyes opened wide and she reached across the desk for a pencil.

“Listen, Sam” Foyle began, his fingers fumbling with the edge of his tie. “I, uh,….I should…..”  
Before he could continue Sam looked up, her eyes wide, her mouth open. “I think I’ve figured it out, Sir!”  
“What have you figured out?”  
“Look at this, Sir” she said, her words coming quickly and her breathing becoming rapid. She traced a pencil along the road that joined up with Flaxton’s farm (the one they had looked at a couple of days ago). Her pencil left a faint grey line until the road ended, rather unexpectedly, at a wide river. She lifted the pencil off the map and hummed to herself as she scanned the rest of the scene. “Ah, there it is!” she cooed a moment later, her pencil rejoining the paper. “Sir, the road that we found behind the rail yards, yesterday….”  
“Yes...” he replied, unable to resist looking over her shoulder. Her enthusiasm, it seemed, was infectious and, if he were honest, he really did want to know what her theory was.  
“Well, it follows behind this small ridge here” she explained, tapping the tip of the pencil onto the faint contour lines printed onto the map. “And that goes right up to the pub we passed on the way to the yards yesterday.”  
“Where you spotted the tractors…?” he asked, turning to face her.   
“Mmm hmm.” She then moved around the desk, her breath catching as the movement jarred her knees.   
“Sam, can I just...” He put a hand out to touch her arm but she moved again and he missed his opportunity.  
“Um...” she mumbled, studying the map, then her hand shot out. “There! There it is!” She pencilled in another line, linking up the roads from the rail yards, the pub and a river. “It all makes sense, now, Sir!” she declared, dropping the pencil. “There is a road that links up the rail yards, the pub and Flaxton’s farm...but it’s blocked by a river.”  
“So” Foyle cut in, smiling as he understood, “if Flaxton could build a bridge, he would have direct access from his farm to the rail yards….a road that no one else would use because they’d assume that it would be blocked.”  
“Exactly, Sir! I’d say that the timber I found yesterday...”

“….was to be used to build the bridge. Well done, Sam!”  
She beamed.

 

Foyle put a hand on her arm and gave it a quick squeeze.  
“I, uh….I’d like to apologise, Sam” Foyle said softly, his left hand once again reaching for his tie.  
Sam’s head drew back in surprise and she frowned.  
“For um...for losing my temper yesterday” he explained. “I treated you very badly and...”  
“No, Sir..” Sam replied, interrupting him. She raised a hand to stop him. “I should apologise.”   
“What?” His hand stopped about two inches from his red silk knot.  
“I made some very bad decisions, yesterday” she told him, shaking her head and looking quite contrite. “I could have got myself….and you, Sir, into a lot of trouble. Not to mention,” she added, looking down at her knees, “ruining a perfectly good pair of stockings and putting a ruddy great whole in my uniform.”

“Right but um,” Foyle stuttered, desperately trying to keep up, “you were upset this morning..when you, uh, first came into my office.”  
“Oh,” she gasped and nodded her head rapidly. “And you thought it was because...”  
“It wasn’t?….you’re not upset with….me?”  
“No, sir!” she assured him and shook her head.   
“Then,” he asked, feeling the ease of suddenly being let off the hook, “..what was the problem this morning, Sam?”  
“Well, Sir” she answered and drew in a deep breath. “It’s a rather a personal thing, actually and I’d...well, I’d rather not say.” She dipped her head and studied her shoes.  
“Can I help?”   
“No….no, Sir. I’ll be alright. I just need to think a few things through, that’s all.”  
“You sure?” he asked quietly.  
“Absolutely” she said and gave him a radiant smile.

 

Together they rolled the maps and chatted more about their theories.  
“What I don’t understand, Sir,” Sam said, smoothing out the edge of the last map with the tips of her fingers, “is how Mr Flaxton knew about the delivery to the rail yards.”  
Foyle pouted his lips in contemplation.  
“You have a theory, Sir...I can tell.” She smirked, her eyes crinkling in the corners  
“We’ll see” he told her. 

Sam loaded up her arms with the maps and made to walk out the door.  
“You, um,...you right to drive, Sam?” he asked her as she turned her back.  
“I’ll manage, Sir” she replied, giving him a solid nod of her head.  
“Right, then. We should pay a visit to that pub, don’t you think?”  
“Three Oaks, Sir?”  
“Yes...just let me have a word with Milner, Sam and...if you could have the car ready in, um, twenty minutes. That okay?”  
“All tickety Boo, Sir.”  
“Oh, and uh, here...you’ll need this” he said, reaching towards his coat rack. He handed her a small-waisted caramel coloured coat, the metal clasp on the belt swinging back and forth as he thrust it forward. “It was my….it was Rosalind’s. It’s not doing anyone any good in a cupboard. It’ll keep you warm...until you get yours back.”  
“Thank you, Sir” she whispered and accepted with a smile.


	5. Chapter 5

Sam and Foyle arrived at the Royal Oak Hotel at just after half past eleven, the journey taking a little longer than normal. The reduced flexibility in Sam’s knees had necessitated a slower speed and on more than one occasion, she’d missed a gear.  
She parked the Wolseley in a side street, a broad evergreen tree on the corner casting a shadow over the car. Switching off the engine, she turned to him and said “here we are, Sir. Sorry about the rough ride.”  
“Not at all” he replied. “Knees still sore?”  
“Only when I bend them, Sir” she said with a smile.

 

They walked slowly, side-by-side, along the narrow strip of grass beside the road, her gloveless hands swinging happily at her sides; his hands secured firmly in his pockets. They passed the small post office, its bright red ‘open’ sign still displayed in the window, despite it being after the advertised closing time. He saw Sam tug on the sleeves of the borrowed coat and adjust the belt around her waist. Rosalind was certainly not as tall as Sam, perhaps not as broad across the shoulders either but, it appeared, she was somewhat thicker around the middle. The belt, drawn in much tighter than he had ever remembered seeing it, evidenced the effects of rationing – something that his Rosalind had never had to cope with, thank God. Unlike modern young women, Rosalind was mild in manner and temperament and generally accepted life’s graces and hardships with a gentleness of spirit (although as the daughter of a Baron, her conception of what constituted a hardship was often very different to his). If there was a blessing to be gained from losing his wife in her youth, it was that he’d never have to see her struggle or do without.

 

Sam had left her cap on the back seat of the car, begging to be excused of convention, and the full-length, non-regulation coat covered all evidence of a uniform underneath. To an outsider, it would appear as though they were just friends, meeting for lunch during a break...or perhaps a father taking his daughter out for a special treat. A daughter, he mused, glancing sideways at the familiar wavy blonde hair, the uncomfortably chilled air making her curls dance. Well perhaps at one time he could have hoped to have had Sam as a more permanent addition to his family, even as a daughter-in-law but, the way his son was behaving, that might be in serious jeopardy. He would have to, he conceded, work on the premise of friendship – something that he sincerely hoped they already shared.

 

“Hope you’re not too thirsty” a deep voice called, the accent rough with vowels that rolled in his throat. A young man, of about twenty, stepped out from beside the pub. He had hair the colour of ground nutmeg with a bushy full beard to match. Foyle’s head tipped back, taking in the full height of the man, the physique reminding him of the chestnut draught horse that used to bring the milk when he was a boy. Sam let out an almost inaudible squeak and the freckles across her cheeks turned a rich auburn.

In his arms the young man carried a crate of empty glass bottles, his tensed biceps muscles pushing against the cotton sleeves of his shirt. “Mr Carseldine won’t open until right on the dot, I’m afraid. Won’t cop a fine..or worse.” He juggled the weight in his arms, the empty bottles clanking noisily. When he reached them he gave a swift nod, appearing content that he’d made the rules more than clear. 

 

It was an old building, public access on ground level and scant accommodation above. The mismatching building materials and historic ad hoc additions spoke of its long history as well as its ability to come back from adversity.

 

Fully laden, the lad turned and pushed the pub door open with his rear end, the heel of his boot acting as a door stop.  
“Did you say Carseldine? Is that the landlord’s name?” Foyle asked, reaching over and helping the young man to keep the door from swinging shut.  
“It is” he replied with a grunt of effort. “...although he’s not here at the moment. I’m just the hired help.” His height, coupled with the wide load he was carrying, made entering difficult. Turning sideways, he passed through the unusually narrow doorway and placed the crate on a table just inside.

 

“Gonna be a cold one, today” the young man announced as he made his way back down the alley beside the pub. He pulled a small towel from over his shoulder and gave his hands a wipe.   
“Mmm. Seems like it” Foyle replied. He and Sam followed although both had to pick up their pace to match the unfathomably long strides, their three barely matching his one.

They soon approached a side entry to the pub, a storeroom in the basement level, that appeared to hold empty glass bottles of every colour shape and size imaginable. 

“Umm….What’s that building?” Sam asked him, pointing further down the lane to what appeared to be a small hastily built brick shed, the walls leaning inwards, its roof made from mismatching sheets of corrugated iron.  
“Don’t know what goes on in there...” he admitted, shaking his head. “None of my business, anyhow.” He groaned as he dragged out another heavy crate, this one slightly larger than the first. 

While Foyle engaged the young man, Sam walked a little closer to the shed and peered into the slightly open door. After checking over her shoulder and getting a non-verbal approval from her boss, she moved closer still and looked into the only window. After a minute or two she returned and gave Foyle a quick nod.  
“Listen we, uh,” Foyle announced to the young man, who had just begun to straighten up, his heavy burden braced against his broad chest, “we might go for a stroll and come back when you’re open.”  
“Righty-ho” he replied and walked briskly away, the clanging noise getting softer the further he went.

 

“Come on” Foyle said, his hand on Sam’s back, urging her forward. “I need to make a telephone call.”  
“That could be tricky, Sir. I didn’t see any public boxes” Sam replied, frowning.  
“No, neither did I but I’m hoping that the post office is still open.” He flicked his head around, ensuring their conversation was indeed a private one. “What was in the out-house?” he asked her, his voice quiet, his hand still resting on the small of her back.  
“I couldn’t see very much, Sir...” she told him quickly, “it was quite dark...but I did spot a rather large coil of copper.”  
“Ah, Well done, Sam.”

 

 

The door to the post office creaked as Foyle pushed it open.   
“Good morning” he said to the woman behind the counter who, by the look on her face, was quite unused to strangers. “My name’s Foyle. I’m a policeman” he slipped a hand into his pocket and quickly pulled out his warrant card, holding it up to validate his claim.  
“Oh” the woman gasped. “You’re lucky I’m still here, Mr Foyle. I was just about to lock the door and go home.”  
“Well, I’m very pleased that you didn’t. Mind if I use your telephone?” he asked her, flashing her a sweet smile.  
“No...not at all” she replied and lifted the heavy contraption off the desk behind her and placed it noisily on the front counter.   
“Thank you.”

Foyle placed a call through to the station, dialling the number that would give him a direct line to Milner’s desk. 

“I’ve been able to gain a little information on Doris Carseldine, Sir” Milner told him over the crackles in the line. “It appears that she’s a widow, Sir, twice over. Her second husband, Roger Carseldine, died a few years ago, but her first husband was a man named Arnold Flaxton. They had a son named Theodore...he’d be about sixteen by now.”  
“Right. Well done” Foyle said, keeping his comments deliberately discrete. 

Turning so that his conversation could not be easily overheard, he asked Milner to dig a little deeper. “The chap who owns the Royal Oak Hotel here in the village is named Carseldine, too. Not what I’d call a common name. See what you can find.”

After ending his call Foyle returned the telephone to the post mistress, thanking her as he lifted the heavy set over the counter. He offered to compensate her for the expense but she waved it away, telling him that she considered it an act of civil duty to help a policeman. She blushed, her cheeks turning a deep crimson.

Just as soon as the heavy door closed behind them, the red sign was flicked around to read closed and the room became suddenly dark.

“It seems that our Mrs Carseldine was once Mrs Flaxton” Foyle whispered to Sam, deliberately emphasising the names, as they walked back towards the pub, their distance from both the post office and the pub making their conversation unlikely to be overheard by anyone in either building.  
“Ohhh” she replied, turning to him with a wide-eyed look.  
“Mmmm” he hummed in reply, keeping his voice low. “And she has a son …. named Theodore.” He let the edges of his lips curl into a smile.  
Sam stopped suddenly and turned towards him, her action causing him to stop walking, too.  
“I wonder if this young man goes by the name of Teddy, Sir?”  
“More than possible, Sam” he said, watching her eyebrows rise. 

For the next few moments, Sam was quiet, unusually so, and the periodic twitches in her face as she stared at her feet told him that she was thinking. He remained silent, too, secure in the knowledge that if she needed his help, she’d ask.

After a little while, she looked up. He knew she’d finish her mental cogitations by the contented look on her face and the smile that graced her lips.  
“We should, uh, get some lunch, don’t you think? You hungry?” he asked her.  
“Starving, Sir” she announced, and led the way back to the pub.

 

The same young man whom they’d met before greeted the two of them with a smile as they entered the Royal Oak. He was standing behind the bar, wiping up a spill with a small white cloth. A lean, sinewy man of about sixty walked behind him, a small grey note book open in his hand. He barked something to the younger man, not looking up from the page, then bent and opened a cupboard to his left. The young barman left his post and headed out through a back door, mumbling something as he went.

There was a large fireplace at the back of the dining area but, despite the impressive size of the bright yellow flames coming from it, the air inside was still uncomfortably chilled. They both left their coats firmly buttoned.  
“What would you like, Sam?” Foyle asked, nodding towards a long thin chalk board attached to the wall beside the bar. It listed the day’s menu – a choice of three options, none of which he found particularly appetising. “My treat.”  
“Thank you, Sir. That’s very kind of you. The shepherd’s pie sounds nice” she suggested while rubbing her hands up and down her arms.  
“Alright” he said, placing his hat on the bar. “Why don’t you go and warm up by the fire.”

Foyle waited patiently, his attention fixed on the landlord and his most recent guest. Carseldine and Trevor Flaxton were having a heated discussion over the back end of the bar, neither of them, apparently, saw him. Flaxton raised his voice, thumping the bar with his fist, as he spoke. Carseldine, however, quickly raised a hand and gripped the younger man’s shirt front in his fist, the speed of his reaction defying his age. With his other hand, he pointed out an entry in his ledger and leaned in to speak directly to Flaxton’s ear. Flaxton grunted, the animal-like noise seeming to come from the pit of his stomach. As soon as Carseldine’s fingers released him, he stomped out through a side door and Carseldine yelled a curse.

The barman returned, a crisply clean apron tied around his waist. Foyle smiled.  
“Sorry to keep you waiting. What can I get for you and your beautiful daughter?” he asked, reaching for the broken glass that had found a new life as a pencil holder.  
“Uh, oh...Miss Stewart isn’t my daughter….” Foyle mumbled, giving a quick glance over his shoulder to see if the barman’s words had been over heard. He was reassured by the sight of Sam absent-mindedly picking at the stitching on her skirt’s hem. She’d since removed Rosalind’s coat, draping it over the chair beside her, her uniform now on display. “She’s my ….. driver. I’m a policeman.” 

Foyle’s correction brought a deep red glow to the man’s cheeks.  
“Sorry” he muttered, looking over at Sam then flicking his eyes back to Foyle “….I thought that...well, …. this morning you….”  
“We’ll both have the shepherd’s pie, please” Foyle said, trying to ease the man’s embarrassment and bring the awkwardness to an end before Sam cottoned on to the subject of their conversation.  
While the barman busied himself writing down the order, Foyle dipped his hand into his pocket, pulling out some coins. 

Before he could even place the money on the counter, though, a horrifying noise filled the air. A high pitched whistle, like a sudden draught passing through a crack in a window. It rapidly got louder and soon it was all he could hear. He dropped the coins from his hand, letting them hit the floor at his feet, and took off towards where Sam was standing. Her clearly frightened face, ashen in hue, was the second last thing he remembered. The last thing, however, was his own voice belting out “Get down!” Then everything went black.


	6. Chapter 6

Foyle’s head throbbed. He could hear his own blood being pumped – whoosh, whoosh, whoosh – in his ears. It was rhythmic and strong so he knew for certain, if nothing else, he was alive. With a mammoth effort he opened his eyes, ignoring the pain-filled warning from his brain imploring him to do no such thing. The light was low and the air around him smelt stale and dusty. He inhaled anyway.

Debris covered his body. Bits of broken furniture tumbled to the floor as he rolled and when the flap of his coat hit the floor, it caused a great cloud of dust to rise. Propping himself up onto his elbow, he scanned the length of his body for damage. Both arms functioned as instructed, thankfully and, although his back ached, especially between his shoulders, he had full movement. He winced as first one leg, then the other obeyed his wish. As his left knee creaked and clicked, a memory flashed before him. Knees ….difficulty bending...Sam!

He rubbed at his eyes, using the heel of his left hand to massage his vision into clarity, or to at least get it to a point where he could make out what, or more importantly who, was around him. Pushing his body up off the floor, performing a kind of side-ways push up, he looked around, blinking.

In the far corner, beyond the splintered remains of tables and chairs, he saw a pair of stocking covered legs, one of them, it seemed, was at an odd angle. The khaki skirt was lifted, showing quite a portion of thigh, and a large body, bending at the middle loomed from above. As the rich brown beard got closer and closer, Foyle’s pulse rate rose.

 

Despite the strain that his lungs were already under, their efforts barely enough to keep him from passing out, he called her name.  
“Sam!”   
In stead of what he hoped would be a reassuring tone to his driver and an authoritative warning to her assailant, what came out sounded more like a football losing air from a slow leak.

“There you are, Miss” he heard the young man say, his voice gentle as he slowly turned Sam’s head to the side. “That should make it a little easier to breathe.” Foyle watched as a large hand wiped a damp cloth over Sam’s face, clearing her airways of dust and dirt. “Now...” he continued, speaking confidently, “we’ll see if we can do something for that leg.”

The barman rose and stepped over what remained of the pub’s interior. Ceiling beams criss-crossed the floor, piles of broken bricks littered the area and shattered glass made a crunching sound under his feet. He picked up a piece of wood, its varnished finish pointing to the fact that it was once part of the bar, and placed it beside Sam’s leg. With a folded knife that he fished out of his pocket, he sliced widths of fabric from the bottom of Rosalind’s old coat. The hastily fashioned ties fastened the splint to Sam’s leg and what remained of the coat was laid carefully on her chest.

By now, Foyle’s lungs had recovered, at least to a functional level, and he pushed himself up to stand. Walking slowly, and choosing his foot holds with care, he made his way over to where Sam was lying.

“Is she….alright?” Foyle asked as he arrived.  
The young man looked over and gave a nod.   
“She’s alive...but unconscious” he reported and adjusted the remains of the coat to cover her arms. “She has a broken leg and a pretty nasty gash to her head.”  
Foyle crouched and touched the split in her scalp with his thumb, parting her hair as he did so. His folded handkerchief made do as a dressing as he gently put pressure on the wound.  
The barman stood and walked back to where the bar once was. 

 

“Your tie is just over that beam, if you were looking for it” the young man said, pointing to a long piece of timber that was propped up at an unusual angle, the red silk dangling off the end. While he searched the area, lifting damaged furniture and brushing away broken glass, he added “I took it off when I first found you. You weren’t breathing very well.”  
“Thank you” Foyle croaked as his fingers touched his throat, the missing tie and two open buttons exposing the top of his chest.

“My name’s Foyle” he said, his voice getting stronger by the minute. “Christopher Foyle.”  
“Daniel Grimshaw….friends call me Danny” he said as a piece of glass skittled across the floor. As he returned he brought with him a still intact bottle of lemonade and one enamel mug. “Here,” he said handing the mug to Foyle. “Drink some of this. The sugar will do you good.”  
“Thank you.” 

 

“It’s only the three of us, I’m afraid” Grimshaw said, nodding back to the bar. “Old man Carseldine didn’t make it. His body’s under what’s left of the bar.”  
“Ahhh. I’m sorry to hear that” Foyle remarked after swallowing a small amount of the sweet drink.  
“I’m not.”

Foyle poured out more of the lemonade, his shaking hands making the neck of the bottle clink against the rim of the mug. He passed the mug to Grimshaw, resting his weight on one knee as he reached across Sam’s body.

 

“Thanks” Grimshaw said and threw down the portion in one quick gulp. Once he’d finished he pummelled the stopper back into the neck of the bottle. “We’ll save the rest for Miss Stewart…...for when she wakes up.”  
Foyle nodded and put a hand on Sam’s shoulder. He gave her collar bone a quick rub with his thumb.

“We shouldn’t have long to wait” Foyle offered, nodding towards the door, the top of it still visible above the mess. “I should think the warden will be along soon.”  
Grimshaw began to chuckle. “You’ll be lucky” he said, looking around at the chaos. “Carseldine sent him home yesterday to sleep off a bender.” He climbed up the rubble, reaching for a window frame. “Normally takes him a few days to come good.”

 

“There’s nobody else?” Foyle asked, his breath catching as he twisted to watch Grimshaw’s activity  
“No.” He hummed his disappointment when, despite his vigorous shaking, the window wouldn’t open. “The Colonel might do something…..”  
“Colonel?” Foyle asked, shaking off his coat. “Colonel who?”  
“Boswick” Grimsahw replied. “Homeguard…..he’s my Commanding Officer.”  
“You’re in the Home Guard?” Foyle asked, gently placing his coat over Sam’s limp body.  
“It’s the best I can do, Mr Foyle. The army didn’t want me….flat feet.”  
“Aaahhhh.”

 

Grimshaw jumped down from his perch and sat down beside Sam.  
“We’d better hope it doesn’t rain” he said, looking around at the devastation caused by a fifty pound bomb on a two storey building, “or we’re in for a cold, wet night.” He shrugged his shoulders in resignation. “We can’t even light a fire without giving Gerry a bird’s eye view of us from above. We’ll just have to sit it out.”  
“Looks that way” Foyle said, nodding in agreement.

 

Just as the sun began to set, Grimshaw stood and began sifting through the rubble. When he came to what remained of the linen cupboard he reached in and pulled out two table cloths, one a little longer than the other, and a kitchen towel.  
“It’s hardly the Hilton” Grimshaw said, a resignation in his voice, “but it will do for the night.” He walked back and tossed one of the table cloths to Foyle and draped the other over the back of a broken chair to his left. Carefully he folded the towel, making it into a small pillow. Bending down he slipped a hand slowly under Sam’s head.  
“It’s alright, love..” he whispered, despite the fact that she was obviously unconscious, and slowly lifted her head.  
Foyle raised an eyebrow, uneasy with the familiarity that this man was showing his driver….and his son’s best girl.  
Grimshaw slipped the home made pillow under her head and carefully lowered her back down.

 

“You, uh, didn’t seem very upset that Mr Carseldine was killed” Foyle remarked, stretching each shoulder in turn.  
“No” Grimshaw replied, his answer a definite one and with not a hint of remorse.  
“You didn’t get along?”  
“He was a thug…..and a thief, Mr Foyle.”  
Foyle’s eyes widened and he pouted his lips.  
“He was either owed money by….or was in debt to ….. every ne’er-do-well in the village. He even kept a ledger” Grimshaw told him.   
“The grey book he was holding?”  
Grimshaw nodded. “It was like his bible. Never let it out of his sight.” He leaned back against a table top that he’d tipped onto it’s edge. “Between him and his sister-in-law….some nights I left here feeling very…..solied, Mr Foyle.”  
“His sister-in-law?” Foyle asked. “Who would that be?”  
“Doris Carseldine” he replied and Foyle felt his jaw drop. “A nasty piece of work that one.”  
“Why do you say that?” Foyle asked and carefully tucked Sam’s hand under the edge of his coat.  
“She’s as ruthless as old man Carseldine. Was married to his brother...although that was before my time. The two of them were working on something big, Mr Foyle” Grimshaw said, giving the table cloth a shake before draping it over his legs.  
“What would that be?”  
“No idea, to be honest….and that’s the way I like it. But the money that passed through their hands, ….well, they could have bought the crown jewels three times over.”

 

“It have anything to do with that shed out the back?” Foyle asked, folding the cloth and using it as a cushion. He fed the rather thin cotton cloth in behind his shoulders and rolled a few times before finding a more comfortable position.  
“I truly don’t know but….Doris Carseldine was here most evenings, and the bulk of that was spent out there.” He relaxed against the table, his fingers linking together behind his head. “Well, that is when she wasn’t leading married men down the sordid path of adultery.”  
“Yes….I know about her affair with….”   
“….the Colonel, mmmm” Grimshaw cut in, finishing the sentence for him. “I think everybody but Mrs Boswick knows about it.”

Foyle frowned as he let this new information roll around in his head. She’s having an affair with two men!? He wondered if each of them knew about the other. They’re both married so it’s unlikely that they would be volunteering the information, so perhaps not. Neither of the men are young, nor are they rich, so what benefit does Doris Carseldine gain by sustaining these affairs?

Foyle stole a glance over to the young man as he laid back against the table top. His broad shoulders and barrel chest were almost as wide as the table and his long legs stretched out so far that his feet had to rest against a pile of bricks, forcing him to bend them uncomfortably. He was such a big man but in that moment Foyle saw the lost and lonely young boy, desperately trying hold onto the values of his childhood while being forced to swim in a murky sea of sordidness.

“Listen, you try and get some rest” Foyle quietly suggested. “I’ll stay up with Miss Stewart.”  
“You sure?”   
“Positive.”


	7. Chapter 7

Foyle sighed and tipped his head back to take in what was left of the ceiling. Of course he couldn’t rest. How could he rest? For goodness sake he could barely keep still, let alone close his eyes. They were trapped in a bombed out building for goodness sake with no obvious way of getting out...and even if he could manage to excavate his way out of the rubble, he’d be forced to leave Sam behind, abandon her while he saved himself, and that simply wouldn’t …..couldn’t happen. He sighed again.

If he were honest, and generally that’s where his values resided, he’d have to acknowledge that it would be many hours before anybody even realised they were here and then they’d have to wait until first light for any meaningful help to arrive.

Unfortunately, having the kind of mind that toiled away unbidden, constantly lacing together pieces of evidence like a house-proud spider, he was rarely able to truly relax and right now his mind was far too busy to allow him to just sit and wait in idleness.

Climbing over a pile of broken bricks, one of many that now surrounded the trio, he made his way slowly back to what remained of the bar. Based on what Grimshaw had said earlier, he found Carseldine’s body twisted around the metal frame of a stool. The back of the man’s skull had been crushed, distorting his face and causing his already harsh features to resemble a sort of lean framed Quasimodo. More than likely he would have died instantly. Just out of habit, Foyle reached down and covered the man’s face with the nearest cloth - a dirty apron stained by some sort of foul smelling green liqueur. Not terribly dignified, he knew, but it was the best that he could manage. Even in a crisis, he thought, it was best to follow protocols, the rules that governed his daily worklife. If nothing else, it kept his hands busy and allowed his mind to process. 

Standing, he spotted something poking out from under Carseldine’s bent elbow. There was hardly any light in the room, the sun was well on its way down but there was something quite unusual about the object. Trying not to disturb the corpse, he reached in and drew out a small grey book. The thick dusty residue on the cover came away with a quick wipe of his hand and, using his thumb, he flicked it open. It was, however, a fruitless task. No matter how slowly he turned the pages or how he angled the shiny paper, he simply couldn’t see well enough to read what was on them so he slipped the book into the pocket of his jacket – something to study later.

He turned and went to make his way back to Sam, feeling satisfied that what he’d found had brought him just one step closer to figuring out this whole convoluted mess. As he put his weight on his right foot, the piece of broken timber beneath rolled and he felt himself begin to fall. As a reflex he grappled for the nearest solid object – a task made all the more difficult by the fact that almost nothing existed above knee level. Finding a strut, the long thin metal contorted, his fingers grasped eagerly. His steadying grip certainly prevented him from falling over completely but, unfortunately, it didn’t stop his knee from ramming into Carseldine’s muscular leg. The grey and blotchy body wobbled in protest and Foyle cursed. 

Out of Carseldine’s hip pocket, the knock to his thigh having opened up a flap, fell a small brass key. It clinked against the polished floor as it bounced a couple of times and stopped. Furrowing his brow, Foyle bent and picked it up. He only managed to get it to his knee before a cord stopped the movement. Foyle’s fingers followed the cord to its source, Carseldine’s belt loop, and slipped open the knot. The key and its tether now found themselves in Foyle’s pocket.

 

A rather feminine groan sounded.   
“Coming!” he called, mindful of his voice’s volume. “Don’t try and get up.”

 

Hurrying over the rubble, this time paying much more attention to where he put his feet, he went to Sam’s side.  
“Mr Foyle?” she whispered, her voice sounding hoarse, almost unrecognisable.  
“Right here, Sam” he consoled, kneeling down beside her right shoulder. He braced himself with one hand flat on the floor beside her head and with the other he felt her forehead for a temperature.   
As his palm touched her skin, she started to cough, a kind of dry hacking bark that he really hoped sounded much worse than it actually was. Slipping his hand from her forehead and placing it behind her shoulders, he lifted her.  
“Can you sit up, Sam?” he asked quietly.  
He held her inclined, taking the weight of her upper body in his palm as her lungs expelled the dust and muck that she’d spent the last few hours breathing in.

The spasms soon eased, allowing her to draw in a deep breath. With her next, she asked “what happened, Sir?”  
“Raid” he simply replied and slowly lowered her back down.  
“You mean I’ve been bombed….again?” she asked him, relaxing her shoulders as he brought the coat back up to cover her chest. He nodded.  
“Are you hurt, Sir?”   
“No” he replied, shaking his head. He offered her a small, quick smile and asked “You think you could drink something?”  
“I could try, Sir.”

Together they managed to get most of the lemonade into her mouth and only a little bit on her chin – Foyle wiped it away with his thumb.   
“Are we the only ones here, Sir?” she asked him after he’d helped her to lie back down again.  
“No” he said and nodded to the mountain of a man who was lightly snoring about four feet to her left, the dust stained cloth that covered him rising and lowering in a slow rhythm.  
Sam gave Foyle a confused look. Her mouth opened and closed in silence, as if she’d wanted to ask a thousand question but had had second thoughts.  
“His name’s Grimshaw” Foyle said, twisting himself around so that he sat, not altogether comfortably, on the floor beside her. “He’s actually a decent man. And he patched you up.” Foyle put out a hand and patted her forearm. 

The sudden arrival of an overwhelming sense of guilt surprised and unnerved him. It welled up inside his gut and threatened to bubble its way to the surface. Why? Was it because he wasn’t the one who had tended to her wounds, that he’d let a complete stranger be her protector? Or was it because he had allowed another man to become so familiar with her, so physically close to the woman his son was stepping out with? Either way it was irrational, not to mention unfair. He pushed it away.

“Patched me up, Sir?” she queried, lifting her head to look down at her own body. She groaned with the effort.  
“Steady on” he said, helping to ease her down. “You’ve had a knock to the head” he explained. “And I suspect that your left leg is broken.”  
“My head feels fine, Sir but …. my leg is hurting quite a bit” she admitted, her lips pursing in discomfort.  
“I wish I could help, Sam. I really do but...there’s little I can offer you. I’m sorry.”

 

“How are we going to get out of here?” she asked, her eyes darting around the almost completely dark room.  
“Well, there’s apparently no hope of getting out of here until morning” he told her. On seeing her face, he instantly regretting bursting her small and rather delicate bubble of hope.  
“Oh.”  
“So you’re stuck here with me for a little while” he said jovially and, just as quickly, the smile returned to her face.

As they talked, reliving memories of past cases and generally amusing each other with funny anecdotes, the temperature in the room slowly dropped. Foyle shifted uncomfortably, trying to draw his middle-aged limbs in towards his torso – exercising the kind of flexibility that he, thankfully, hadn’t had to test in many years. The discomfort, however, was all for naught, and he soon became quite cold. He began to shiver, which he somewhat successfully hid from Sam but when his teeth started to chatter, it was a much more difficult thing to hide.

“You must be freezing, Sir” she said to him, using the kind of voice he imagined her using when she had accompanied her father on Parish visits. “Where is your coat?” she asked, returning the concern that he had shown to her just a couple of days ago.  
He flicked his head, nodding towards her middle. Sam lifted a hand and touched the fabric that was covering her.   
“Here, Sir” she said, attempting to pull the felt-like coat off her body.  
“No, no!” he exclaimed, taking her hand off the coat’s lapel. “Keep it on….please.”  
“But I have the coat you loaned to me….your wife’s….you have this one.”

He shook his head and rested his hand on her shoulder.  
“Not much left of that now…” he stated, his voice calm, “...it was used to splint your leg.”  
“Oh no!” she protested, once again looking down to her leg. “I’m so sorry, Sir. You must be …. quite upset…..your wife’s coat!”  
“Really doesn’t matter, Sam” he assured her, patting her hand. “Just a coat….went to a good cause.”  
“Still,” she grumbled, her chin resting on her chest, “I am sorry it’s been ruined.”  
“Don’t be” he asked of her, adding a smile.

Turning, Foyle grabbed the corner of the donated table cloth, shaking it out with a flick of his wrist. With an almost silent humph, he gave in and wrapped it around his shoulders, pulling the two long corners in tightly under his neck. It wasn’t elegant, nor was it particularly practical, but it did stop his teeth from chattering. That alone was enough for him to let go of his dignity for one night.

“Can I tell you something, Sir?” Sam asked, rolling her head to face him.  
“Of course you can.” He gave her one of his smiles that made his eyes twinkle.  
Now that he was starting to warm up he let his legs relax. His shoes slid along the fine powder that covered the floor.   
“I did receive a letter from Andrew.”  
What he wanted to say was ‘so did I’ but he resisted the urge – there was nothing good that could possibly come from that exchange. The room fell silent while he waited for her to speak and he could tell, just by listening to her breathing, that she was thinking.  
“He, um….” she began but stalled as her voice was swallowed in a hiccough. She turned away from him and took a moment to draw in a deep breath.   
“What is it?” he quietly asked.  
“...it seems he’s thrown me over, Sir.”

 

Foyle groaned. The ruddy fool of a boy, Foyle thought to himself, tensing his jaw. What was he thinking? This beautiful, intelligent, strong and dependable young woman was here waiting for him to return and all he could think of was the next best thing, tossing her faithfulness on the scrap heap like an unwanted Christmas toy on the 3rd of January.  
“Oh..” was what he actually managed to say. After a pause, feeling like he really ought to add something more, he said “I’m sorry, Sam.”

 

He waited silently for her to turn back to him which, of course, she did.  
“Is that what upset you, Sam? What you couldn’t tell me about this morning?” He glanced at the luminous face of his watch and corrected himself “...yesterday morning?”  
She nodded.  
“Why didn’t you tell me? You know you can talk to me about…..anything.”  
“I didn’t want you to think badly of him, Sir.”

She was still putting others before herself, even with her heart broken. Andrew certainly didn’t deserve her. She deserved someone who could be depended upon, someone who would stick by her, look after her, and put her needs first. She needed a man….not a boy and his son had firmly planted himself into the latter category. 

 

Beside them Grimshaw snorted, shuffled his legs and slowly sat up.  
“Oh” he mumbled, wiping the crusted-on spittle from the corner of his mouth with the cloth that he still held around him. “Good to see you awake.” He crawled across the small space and pulled up the coat on Sam’s chest, pressing the lapels against her neck to add extra warmth. He tucked the edges in under her shoulders and gave her arm a pat. Foyle smiled.

“Will you be alright if I close my eyes for a bit, Sam?” Foyle asked, taking himself to a secluded corner not too far away.  
“I think so, Sir” she responded, giving the newcomer a wary smile. “Where are you going?”  
“Just over here” he replied, propping a table top against a wall. “Call if you need me.”

He leaned back, pulled up the table cloth and closed his eyes. Sleep took him quickly.

 

Foyle wasn’t sure if it was the sun’s light streaming through the half-blocked window or the familiar booming voice that woke him but he was equally happy to be a witness to both. 

The split piece of timber that he’d called a bed for the last few hours creaked as he pushed up against it. He was still cold and the grumble in his stomach reminded him of how very hungry he was but the sun had risen and Sam was okay – not a bad effort. He stood and stretched.

On the far side of the room he saw Grimshaw sitting beside Sam, holding her hand firmly and stroking her knuckles with his thumb. Both of them had smiles on their faces although he could tell, just by looking at Sam, that she had not had a very restful night. Her cheeks were pale and she had dark rings under her eyes. 

 

As he slowly made his way over to the couple, he said “sounds like the cavalry’s arrived.” In truth, he was sure that they, too, had heard the voices outside. Both he and Sam had been working with Reid and Milner for long enough to recognise their voices in an instant, even from behind a bomb damaged wall, but he felt the need to announce his presence and that seemed like the most mundane and least awkward way to do it.

 

Mirroring Sam’s smile, he once again crouched and put a hand on her forehead, lifting her tussled hair with his index finger.   
“You ready to get out of here?” he asked.  
“You bet I am!”

 

Milner’s muffled voice sounded from outside.   
“Mr Foyle! Sam!” he called.  
“Christopher!” Reid added, a slight panic evident in his voice.  
“In here!” Foyle called back, moving as close to the sound as he could manage without causing any more damage.

“We’re going to try and push the doors in” Milner bellowed.   
“No!” Foyle hurriedly called back, his eyes flicking up to the long beams that were leaning against the door. “The roof will cave in!”  
“Got a better idea, Christopher?” Reid questioned, frustration underlining his words.  
Foyle scanned the room, making a mental note of where the ceiling seemed to be still intact. Of course he had no idea what the structure looked like above, or even if anything above them still existed, but it was all he had to work on.  
“Hold on!” Foyle yelled.

Grabbing a stool from the rubble, he placed it under a bowed ceiling panel.  
“Do be careful, Sir” Sam cautioned as he reached up and gave the side beam a tentative push. While his end took the pressure calmly, the snapped timber on the opposite corner creaked in annoyance.

“It won’t take the barrage, Mr Foyle” Grimshaw said with absolute certainty as he, too, stepped up onto a rickety chair. “One push,” he explained, touching the support beam, “and the whole thing will cave in...none of us will see the light of day.”

With a deep and deliberate intake of air, Grimshaw stood, stretching to his whole height. Taking the unsteady beam into his hands he brought it over and rested it against his broad shoulder. His feet took the widest stance that he could manage, his toes right at the edge of the chair, and he blew out his breath through tight lips.

“If they go slowly, Mr Foyle,” he said, his concentration fixed, “I can hold it still. At least for long enough for you to get yourself and Sam to safety.”  
“Danny! No!” Sam called, her upper body resting on her elbows. 

Foyle turned to the broad chested man. “You sure, lad?”  
“I can hold it, Mr Foyle” he said with a nod, although eye contact was sadly lacking.

 

“Christopher?!” Reid’s voice bellowed. “You still with us?”  
“Western wall, Hugh” Foyle replied, “Steady as you go.”

 

Soon the deep rumble of a tractor’s engine broke their silence and the wall on the western side of the building began to creak. The floor under them shook with ferocity, as the centuries old building protested this latest assault on its dignity.  
“Alright?” Foyle called to Grimshaw.  
“Yep.”

 

Foyle nodded and made his way over to where Sam was.   
“It’ll be alright” he told her, gently pushing her shoulders down so that she was flat on the floor. Her eyes met his, the fear in them obvious.

Everything began to vibrate around them and Foyle looked up at the roof as more debris began to fall. Bricks and panels of wood rained down, hitting the floor in twos and threes, the resulting din quite unnerving. 

Cradling her head in his hand, his fingers braced against the back of her neck, he spread his body over hers, his forearm on the floor next to her ear, one leg out stretched. She turned her head, pressing her cheek firmly against the top of his chest.

 

The coat that was keeping her warm was quickly tossed and he felt her arms wrap themselves around his torso, her finger tips digging into the flexed muscles in his back. Her words, vibrating against his chest in rhythmic prose, told him that she was praying fervently and he, never normally one to do so out loud, joined her.   
Come on, Reid. Get a move on!

 

There was an almighty crash, making them both start. The air was suddenly filled with thick red-grey dust as half of the wall collapsed inwards, spreading bricks and glass in all directions. Sam stifled a yelp.

Sunlight streamed in as the cloud of dust and dirt settled. The strained engine cut out.

“Danny!” Sam called, releasing her grip on Foyle.   
“Hurry!” Grimshaw bellowed back, his voice strained, the legs of the chair beneath him creaking against the warped floor below.

Flicking his body over, Foyle quickly slipped his hands under Sam, one under her shoulders, the other bracing against her splint.  
In one swift movement, he raised her up off the floor, pulling her towards his chest as he stood. Her hands linked around his neck, holding tightly, as he made his way over the rubble towards the opening.

Reid met them as they exited, his feet slipping on the debris in his haste. 

“Hugh, help the lad!” Foyle shouted, nodding his head back to where Grimshaw still stood, his eyes closed, his face red with strain.  
Reid cursed, the fear and surprise obvious in his voice. He whistled over two young constables, who obeyed in an instant, and all three of them fumbled their way through the rubble.

Foyle continued on, taking Sam to a waiting police vehicle, the back door open. He slid her into the long bench seat, apologising as a bump to her leg caused her to cry out.

Before he could shut the door, though, a loud crash came from over his shoulder. What little remained of the pub had now caved in and collapsed, leaving a rambling mess of bricks, timber and glass in an uneven arc. 

 

“Danny!” Sam shouted, her cry adding to the chaotic din. She pushed against Foyle’s chest, trying desperately to get out of the car.  
“No!” Foyle said, the firmness in his voice surprising even him. “Stay here.”  
Foyle held his breath as he turned around, one hand on Sam’s shoulder, the other braced against the car’s door. 

Ahead of him he saw four figures, two large and two small, all covered in dust, their faces unrecognisable. 

One of the taller ones turned and with the palm of his hand wiped the muck from the faces of the two smaller ones.  
“Right” Reid said, his voice unmistakably familiar, “go and see the doc...both of you.”  
“Yes, Sir” one of them replied, scraping the rest of the dust from his face with his fingernails.   
The other just coughed, unable, it seemed, to speak.  
“And once you’ve been cleared” Reid added, pausing while he turned his head to cough, “go and see Sgt Rivers.” He coughed again, hunching his shoulders as he brought up muck from his lungs. “You did well, lads….very well….thank you.”

The other tall figure, much broader in stature, scraped a shaking hand across his face and wiped it onto the front of his shirt. He strode over to the car. Foyle put out his hand and shook it firmly. Nodding, he stepped aside giving Grimshaw access to the back seat.

Leaving his ecstatic driver to her squeals of delight, Foyle strode over to where Reid stood.   
“Who is that bloody man-mountain, Christopher?” Reid asked between coughing fits.  
“Daniel Grimshaw” Foyle told him. “Home guard….and, in case you hadn’t already guessed, he’s rather smitten.”  
“With your driver?” Reid asked, his face still displaying his confusion.   
Foyle put a hand on Reid’s back, giving him a solid thump between the shoulder blades as another coughing spasm took over.  
“Well, I don’t think he finds me all that attractive, Hugh.”  
Hugh rolled his eyes. “Weren’t she and Andrew…?”  
“Long story, Hugh....”

 

Before they left, Foyle climbed into the back of the car and sat down on the edge, his added weight making the springs creak.   
“How are you feeling?” he asked quietly, patting her hand.  
“Tired, hungry….and my leg’s really giving me gyp, Sir.”  
“Won’t be long now, Sam” he quietly said and bent over to plant a quick kiss on her cheek. “You’ll be alright if I let this chap escort you to the hospital?” he asked, nodding his head in Grimshaw’s direction.  
“I won’t leave her, Mr Foyle” he said, solemnly, and reached under Foyle’s arm to grip Sam’s hand.  
Foyle smiled and nodded. “I’ll come to the hospital later and see how you’re getting on.”  
“Jolly good, Sir.”


	8. Chapter 8

“Now just….steady on with that thing, hmmm?” Foyle chided, watching Sam slide one of Rosalind’s old knitting needles between the cast on her lower left leg and the skin beneath. “You’ll end up doing yourself an injury.”  
“Oh but it itches, Sir!” Sam groaned, her eyes almost closing with relief. “You have no idea.”

 

Milner, sitting beside her on the old but still comfortable two-seater Chesterfield, smiled and put out his hand, an expectant look in his eye. Sam grumbled, the corners of her eyes crinkling, but passed him the long needle anyway.

“Here you are,” Foyle said, handing her a cheese and lettuce sandwich, with considerably more lettuce than cheese but with deliberately thicker slices of national loaf. “Have something to eat....take your mind off.” If there was anything that could take Sam’s mind off any hardship, it was definitely food.

Smiling, Foyle slid over a small padded foot stool with the toe of his shoe. He gave one crisp nod to the stool then stepped away. She, of course, obeyed, gently placing her heel onto the cushion.  
“Thank you, Sir” she quietly mumbled around a mouthful, a hand covering her lips.

Sam had spent almost two weeks in hospital, grumbling constantly about wanting to be useful and not being allowed to even fetch her own dressing gown, but he was glad that, for once, someone else had been charged with looking after her. Grimshaw had rarely left her side during her stay, seeing fit to fuss her within an inch of death (so she’d claimed), for as long as Matron would allow. 

The injury to her head, although it looked gruesome, turned out to be quite superficial – it didn’t even need stitching. Her leg, however, had required some minor surgery to correct the mismatched alignment of bones and a few more weeks of care were needed before she was back on her feet – literally.

Being on her own and struggling to manage with crutches and two flights of stairs was simply out of the question for Foyle so he’d offered her the back room at his house, extending the invitation to her mother every Tuesday and Wednesday when she came down on the train to visit. A kindness that had not gone unnoticed by Sam’s father who had written two letters, each gushing with gratitude, the second accompanied by a small box of Mrs Stewart’s home made fudge (most of which Sam had eaten). 

 

“Now, Sir” Sam pleaded, turning her body so that she could see him as he moved around the small sitting room. “You did promise...”  
“I promised?” he teased, raising his eye brows, “What did I promise, Miss Stewart?”  
“That you would tell me how you and Milner solved the case, Sir.” She took another bite of her sandwich and Milner poured out three cups of tea from the tray in front of him, his amusement barely hidden.

 

“Well,...” Foyle muttered, slowly sitting himself down in his chair beside the fire. “Where would you have me start….?”

 

The previous fortnight...  
When it was obvious that Sam would not be doing any driving for the foreseeable future, in fact for quite some time according to the doctor that Foyle had spoken to the evening before, Reid quickly appointed one of his new Constables, George Browne, to take up the slack. Surprised by the gesture but terribly grateful that his investigation would not be hampered, Foyle called the strapping young lad into his office and asked him to drive him, and Milner, to an address in Ninfield, just two miles out of Catsfield.

 

“Just here will be fine, thank you, Browne” Foyle said as they slowly rounded a bend in the road. 

The Constable pulled over, bringing the car to a stop on a wide verge, the wheels slipping a little in the soft mud.  
“I’m not sure Mrs Carseldine will be home, Sir” Milner said as they both made their way over to the small brick bungalow, the entrance set back off the street and partly concealed by two tall pine trees.  
“Well,” Foyle reasoned, walking slowly up the path to the house, “I don’t think that Mr Patterson has much ….need for her any more, Milner so I’m thinking that she may have gained a little extra spare time.”

 

Foyle knocked loudly on the front door then stepped back to take in the scene. It was an old house, the crumbling wooden frames and dusty windows in dire need of attention, but, curiously, the door’s attractive brass fittings were brand new - like shiny new baubles on last year’s Christmas tree.

“Mr Foyle” Doris Carseldine said, her eyes wide.  
“Good morning, Mrs Carseldine” he replied and touched the brim of his hat. “I’m, uh, sorry about your brother-in-law.”  
“Yes, ….yes. Thank you” Mrs Carseldine mumbled, obviously confused and perhaps even a little surprised that not one but two police detectives should be calling on her more than a week after her brother-in-law’s death.  
“Not working today?” Foyle asked her, a tilt to his head.  
“No. Mr Patterson has given me some time to …..recover.”

As she stepped back to open the door a little further, her feet kicked a large kerosene lantern, the base of which was covered in a thick muddy crust.  
“Been doing some night work, Mrs Carseldine?” Foyle asked her, pointing to the lantern.  
“I’m a widow, Mr Foyle. If there’s a job needs doing, I have to do it myself. No good waiting for a man to show up.”  
“I see” Foyle replied. “Of course.”

Mrs Carseldine bent to pick up the lantern, the short sleeve of her house dress slipping up her arm as she reached. Four small, fingertip sized bruises suddenly became visible on her upper arm, a larger fifth one near her armpit.  
“Are they bruises, Mrs Carseldine?” Foyle asked, softening his voice.  
“Oh,” she replied, pulling ineffectually on the sleeve of her dress. “I’ve been ….clumsy ….not sleeping well….since my brother-in-law’s death. It was all quite a shock to me.”  
“Are you in any danger, Mrs Carseldine?” Milner asked her, his brow furrowed. “Do you need help?”  
“No, no, no” she replied, pasting on a smile. Her hand went to her arm, rubbing briskly as if trying to erase the purplish skin. “Nothing to worry about.”

Behind her, on the small wooden table, sat a biscuit tin, it’s lid laying back against a vase of dying Chrysanthemums. Hanging over the edge of the tin was one crumpled and dirty bank note. A handful of coins lay scattered on the tabletop beside it.

 

“Mum!” came the call from behind Milner. They all turned towards the sound.  
A tall, slightly framed boy of no more than sixteen trotted up the front path. His clothes, obviously purchased before his last growth spurt, clung tightly to his body. His jacket, thin from use, barely touched his waist and his shoes, visible below the too-small trousers, were caked in the same brick dust that Foyle himself had had to brush off his own shoes - the reddish brown colour an exact match.  
“I had another look but I just couldn’t …..” he began but was cut short by his mother’s swift interruption.  
“This is my boy, Teddy” Mrs Carseldine announced in much too loud a voice, her eyes glaring at the boy. “Come and meet these nice detectives” she said to him, a pinch to his arm making him jump.  
“Teddy” Foyle repeated, nodding to the lad. “Short for Edward?”  
“Yes, Sir.”

Mrs Carseldine shifted her stance and turned to face Foyle. “If there was nothing else, Mr Foyle...” she began, reaching for her door. “I really must start on my boy’s lunch. He’s a growing lad” she announced, a nervous laugh adding to her peculiar behaviour.  
“No, nothing for now,” Foyle told her, pivoting on his toe, “but, uh, we might need to speak to you again, Mrs Carseldine.”  
“I can’t….imagine why, Mr Foyle. Surely Roger’s death isn’t suspicious...the Germans killed him.”  
“No it’s not …..suspicious,” Foyle said, stopping his movement, “but I’d still like to ask you a few more questions about the theft from the railyards. I can see that you’re busy at the moment, Mrs Carseldine, so….we’ll call another time.”  
“Good day, Mrs Carseldine” Milner added as both of them walked back along the path.

Before they’d reached the small gate, though, Mrs Carseldine’s shrill voice was calling after them.  
“Mr Foyle?” she wheezed as she caught up to them, a heavy cardigan hastily draped around her shoulders. “Roger had a small book….it was very special to him, and to us. You haven’t come across it have you? I’d….I’d really like to have it back….for the family.”  
Foyle reached into his pocket and pulled out the small grey covered ledger. “This it?” he asked, holding it firmly in his palm.  
“That’s the one. Yes” she replied, a relieved smile on her face. She reached out swiftly with her hand.   
“I’m afraid I can’t let you have it just yet, Mrs Carseldine. It’s evidence but as soon as we’re finished with it, I’ll return it.”  
“Of course” she grumbled, disappointment etched onto her face as her eyes followed the book’s every movement.

 

As Foyle and Milner returned to the car, a red faced Browne slid quickly off the bonnet of the Wolseley and scrubbed out a cigarette with his boot,.   
“You, um ... ready?” Foyle asked the flustered Constable, rolling his eyes at the now grey dust that covered his rear.  
“Yesss, Sir” Browne stuttered. He quickly saluted and hurried around to his door, the crimson flush still visible in his cheeks.

 

From the back seat Milner opened the map that Sam had made her pencil markings on. The top edge rested lightly on the back of Foyle’s seat, his fingers stopping it from being flicked closed.  
“If we head back down that way, Sir” Milner stated, nodding back over his shoulder, “we should meet Carter road about five miles in.”  
“Right” Foyle said and looked over to the Constable in the seat next to him. “Can you read a map? Know where you’re going?” The need to ask such questions hadn’t arisen in quite some time and the sudden necessity made Foyle feel low.  
The young man swallowed slowly and the red flush on his cheeks deepened even further.  
“Not very well, Sir” he admitted, a wobble in his voice.  
“Just head back down the way we came, Constable” Milner commanded as he rolled up the map. “I’ll let you know when to turn.”  
Foyle shrugged his mouth up to one side and chewed the side of his mouth in frustration. 

 

After a mainly quiet journey, Milner taking over the task of directing the Constable, to save what was left of Foyle’s amiable disposition, they arrived at a bridge. Foyle exited the car and walked slowly over to the rather flimsy looking construction. The end points barely fitted against the crumbling bank and the middle sagged. No side rails existed and the timber slats seemed to be spaced far too far apart.  
“Don’t know if I’d be happy to drive a full lorry over this, Sir” Milner quipped, walking to stand beside his boss. His head tilted to take in the angle.

“No.” Foyle reached out and traced his finger over the markings on the tall pylons.   
“These are all government property, Sir. The broad arrow” Milner said, rather unnecessarily, and made his way swiftly down the crumbling loamy soil towards the rapidly moving water below. His feet slipped and he groaned, screwing up his face. With a hand braced against the steep embankment, he looked up at the underside of the timber palings.  
“These have the same marking, Sir...all of them.”  
Foyle reached out a hand and helped him back up the bank, adding a second hand onto his elbow for stability.

“I’d be willing to bet this is the timber that Sam found in the back of the lorry, Sir” Milner surmised before he’d even reached the top of the bank.  
“Mmm” Foyle hummed.   
Looking back at the Wolseley, Foyle asked “you think our fearless companion will manage to get us to the other side?”  
“Sam would” Milner whispered and chuckled all the way back to the car.

 

“Over that thing!?” Browne asked, pointing to the obviously homespun construction in front of them, his throat seeming to constrict around his words. “It’s not much wider than the car, Sir. We’ll all end up in the drink!”  
“Listen” Foyle suddenly remarked. He leaned in closer to the Constable, feigning a conspiracy. “My usual driver would have had us up and over that bridge in exactly eight seconds…...no,” he added, pausing to add emphasis to his next word, “SHE would have begged to have been given the chance to do it in six….but, you make up your own mind, Constable.” Having baited his hook, Foyle now sat back in his seat and adjusted his hat.

Browne leaned forward and turned the key, puffing out a quick breath as the engine rumbled to life.  
Soon the wheels bumped and thumped against the gaps in the slats, causing them all to hold on tightly, and Browne let out a squeak. Foyle rolled his eyes.  
“Almost there” Milner said quietly. “Keep going”.  
The engine suddenly roared as Browne nervously accelerated over the last few feet, bringing a quick end to a harrowing journey. 

 

Once the tyres has found solid ground, the car came to a screeching halt, forcing them all to jerk forward. Before anyone could even say a word, Browne reached a shaking hand into his pocket and pulled out a cigarette case.   
“Sorry, Sir” he mumbled, and brought a lit cigarette to his lips, the bright orange tip moving between quivering fingers. The cabin soon filled with smoke and Browne rested his head back against the seat.  
“You think we could, uh...” Foyle asked, pointing through the front windscreen.  
“Oh...yes, Sir” Browne replied. He coughed as the car puttered forward.


	9. Chapter 9

“Six seconds, Sir? I’d have made it in four” Sam announced, “….five at the most” she conceded, slipping her index finger down the side of her cast. “But you’ve barely mentioned the ledger…..or the mud on the lantern and Teddy’s shoes …...and where,” she asked, grimacing as her finger didn’t quite reach the right spot, “did the money come from, Sir?”  
“Perhaps if you’d let me finish, Sam” he interjected, raising an eyebrow.  
“Sorry, Sir.”

The previous fortnight…

The rest of their journey was relatively incident free, save for when a small hare didn’t quite win its battle against the front left tyre. Constable Browne didn’t even miss a beat, tapping his finger absently against the steering wheel to a beat only he could hear. No wonder Reid was quick to re-assign this git – he was absolutely ruddy useless.

As they followed the quiet road through the country-side, long forgotten hedges periodically swatting the sides of the car, Foyle reached into his pocket and pulled out the small grey ledger.

His left hand braced the spine while his right thumb held the last page open.

5th MY BIDS WATCHED 

5th MAKE TO BLUFF 

10th WITH BOTTLES THEY PLACE BETS 

10th IN GAMBLING HOUSES CRIB 

10th FIRST FALSE ONE OF ACES FIT 

 

“It’s obviously some sort of code” he said quietly to Milner who was leaning forward in his seat so that he, too, could see the page. “But...I can’t make any sense of it.” He scratched his chin in silent contemplation.

“If we assume that the numbers are dates, Sir….” Milner suggested, his eyes squinting.  
“Aaahhh”, Foyle said and slipped his thumb and forefinger into his pocket and pulled out the copy of the order that Station Officer Patterson had made. “Well done.”

After unfolding the paper, he said “The original order was placed on the tenth of October...”   
“Hmmm,” Milner mumbled, lost in though. “And the fifth, Sir?”

“Not sure. It could be related, Milner” he pondered out loud, running his finger down the centre line of the ledger, “but these phrases…...”   
“Place bets? Bids?” Milner read. “Gambling, Sir? Plenty of money to be made at a black jack table.”  
“You’re right, Milner but it’s always the house that comes out on top...never the punters.”

“Was Roger Carseldine running a gambling house, do you think, Sir?”  
“As well as operating his own pub?...he already seemed to be run off his feet when I saw him. Mmmm…..I don’t think so.” Foyle shook his head.

 

“No, you’re right, Sir” Milner admitted. He sat back in his seat and tapped his finger on the leather beside his thigh. After a quick intake of breath, he said “One of the entries mentions surveillance, Sir.”  
“It does” Foyle replied, nodding. He stroked the paper next to the word ‘watched’ and turned his head to look at his sergeant.  
“I do know that there’s a gambling racket at Brighton that’s often being watched, Sir. Plenty of people on their list.”  
“Might be worth getting in contact with Brighton this afternoon” Foyle suggested. “See who’s on that list.”  
“Yes, Sir.”

The car suddenly rocked from side to side as Browne drove them, altogether too quickly, over some deep ruts in the road’s surface, a result of the recent heavy rain. Foyle’s left temple smacked into the window beside him and he cursed. With his hand gripping the back of the lad’s seat, he glared.

“Sorry, Sir” Browne apologised, quickly turning his head. The crimson glow returned.

 

“We’re here, Sir” Milner announced, pointing through the front windscreen. Browne pulled the car to a halt and both policemen got out.  
“Stay here” Foyle barked at the lad. “Don’t move.”  
“Yes, Sir” came the sheepish reply. “I won’t, Sir.”

 

Foyle ascended the steep stairs that led to the station, Milner close behind. An arriving train, with its thick clouds of steam billowing onto the platform, masked their approach so Patterson literally jumped when he saw them.  
“Mr Foyle” he stammered. “Sorry, I wasn’t expecting to see you.”  
He was dishevelled, his uniform wrinkled and seemingly unwashed, his face unshaven.  
“Can we, uh, have a word?” Foyle asked, quickly shuffling to one side as a large family bustled their way past them towards the third class car of the waiting train.   
“Yes” he said and slowly ambled his way towards the door marked ‘Private’.

 

Patterson’s desk was a mess with haphazard piles of papers covering every inch. Groaning, he slipped his fingers under the smallest of the piles and carefully transferred it to the top of a book case. He plopped himself down into the only chair in the room and leaned forward, resting his hands in the now empty space on his desk.  
“Sorry” he once again muttered and nodded to his belongings. “Mrs Carseldine normally looks after all of this….What can I do for you, gentlemen?” he asked.  
“Mrs Carseldine not, uh, not helping you anymore?”  
“She won’t be back” Patterson shot back, his shoulders suddenly tensing. “And neither will my wife” he muttered quietly, his breath hitching on the last word.

Milner glanced at his boss, his eyes asking permission to continue. Foyle nodded.  
“Do you keep a journal of events, Mr Patterson?” Milner asked, scanning the room. “A list of ins, out, scheduled activities….that sort of thing?”  
“Oh” Patterson mumbled and began to sift through the contents of his desk. When that didn’t bear fruit he rifled through the drawers by his knee. “Here we are” he declared after a few moments and held up a wide book. “What do you need?”

“What can you tell me about the 5th of October, Mr Patterson?” Milner asked, moving forward. Patterson licked his finger and turned the thin pages until he found that date.  
“Uuuhhh, nothing really” he told them, running his finger down the list. “The eight-oh-five was a little late and …..a child lost a suit case.”  
“Right...” Foyle said and gave Milner a look of resignation. “Mind if we have another look at the rail yards?” He patted his hip pocked, his fingers feeling the key he liberated from Carseldine.  
“Not at all” Patterson said, shaking his head. 

 

“What are you hoping to find, Sir?” Milner asked as they made their way down to the gated yards behind the station.   
Foyle stroked his temple, the painful bump under his fingers making him groan.  
“Not completely sure” Foyle replied and pulled the key out of his pocket.  
“Is that Patterson’s key, Sir?” Milner asked, stopping as they reached the doors to the warehouse.  
“Well, I’m not really sure of that, either. I found it in Roger Carseldine’s pocket after he….”  
Foyle inserted the key into the padlock and turned. It clicked but nothing happened. “…..died.”  
“Well, it doesn’t seem to be the key to that lock, Sir” Milner stated. “Although that’s the same cord that’s on Patterson’s key.”  
“Mmmm. It is.” Foyle pouted his lips and took the key out of the lock. 

 

Milner strode over to the high fence, the greater than usual physical exertions of the last few days making his limp more pronounced.   
“Sir?” he called, bracing himself with one hand tightly gripped onto the fence.  
“Hmmm?” Foyle joined him, the key safely back in his pocket.  
“That warehouse isn’t the only thing that ought to have been locked” Milner said and nodded towards the open gate in the perimeter, the shiny Wolseley beyond the opening.   
“Nnnno. It’s not.” Foyle strode over to the gate, lifting the heavy branch out of his way. He tried to ignore the sight of his new driver sitting in the front seat, his right index finger disappearing into his left nostril.

Finding the unused chain and padlock hanging from a screw in a pole, Foyle inserted his key and turned. The lock clicked instantly, the pin flicking upwards.  
“At least we know now how they got into and out of the yard, sir.”  
“We do,” Foyle confirmed, “and we also know that Roger Carseldine played a much greater part than we realised.”  
“How did Mr Carseldine get his hands on a key that should have been safely locked up in Patterson’s cabinet?”  
“I’d say,” Foyle said, turning back to look at the platform, a puff of steam rising in the distance, “that Mrs Carseldine….liberated it.”

 

Pushing his way through the foliage, and holding the branches back so Milner could follow, Foyle made his way back to the Wolseley and its now clean-nosed driver.  
“Let’s pay a visit to Colonel Boswick” Foyle announced to Milner as he levered himself back into the front seat.   
Browne’s head flicked around and he gave Foyle an open-mouthed stare.  
“You mean I’ve got to go back the way we came?” he questioned, his voice pitched high.  
“You do” Foyle replied, pointing back over his shoulder.  
“Back over the …... bridge?” he asked, swallowing slowly.  
“Back over the bridge….quick as you like.”  
“Yes, Sir” Browne replied, and gripped the wheel so tightly his knuckles turned a pasty white.

 

As they motored back along the narrow road Milner leaned forward.  
“I really don’t think that Mr Patterson is involved, Sir”  
“No. Neither do I” Foyle said, turning in his seat. “About the only thing he’s guilty of is poor judgement in having an affair with Doris Carseldine.”  
“And not keeping a closer eye on his key cabinet.”  
“Mmm.”

 

A sea of lavender Asters, gently swaying in the breeze, greeted them as they rolled into the driveway of the Boswick residence. The gardener, his cap pulled down firmly, gave them a fearful look as if to say ‘enter at your own risk’ then turned and headed along the side path.  
“Stay..” Foyle began, turning his head slowly to address his driver but his command was cut short.  
“I know, Sir” Browne blurted, shifting his bottom in the seat. “I’ll stay here...and not move.”  
Foyle instantly felt a sharp jolt of guilt as he watched the young lad, even younger than his own son, slink down into the seat and hang his head. Reparations were in order.  
“Listen,” Foyle began, and rested a hand on the dash. “If you’re thirsty….Miss Stewart often kept a flask of water in the boot….it’s probably still there. And, if you’re exceedingly lucky, she may have left a biscuit or two as well...in the red tin.”  
The lad’s head rose and a smile started to grow.   
“Thank you, Sir” he gushed. “I’ll have a look.”  
“Well, just make sure that you….refill it when we get back to the station.”  
“Certainly, Sir.”

 

Milner gave his boss a sly smile as they made their way up the curving driveway, the gravel crunching under their feet.

 

“Oh you should be scared, Everett…!” an angry woman’s voice yelled, the sound seeming to come from an open window on the first floor although drawn drapes prevented a clear view.  
Foyle stopped and put a hand on Milner’s shoulder, the gesture telling him to stop, too.  
“I know what you’ve been up to….all of it and I’m not afraid to tell” the woman continued. “I’ve got nothing left to lose. I know what you’ve been doing with Doris Carseldine, you swine ….and I know the little deal you made with her, too ….that whore.”  
“Now, now, Gladys,” a man said, his voice quite a bit calmer then the woman’s. “We can work this out….there’s no need to…..well, just keep your voice down, will you?”  
“I shan’t….no, I shan’t stay quiet” she replied, her voice getting louder. “Roger Carseldine tried to give me money to keep quiet…..a tenth….he offered me a tenth of the profits, Everett – just as much as he promised you. Ha!”  
“Then that’s a good enough reason to keep your mouth closed, isn’t it?” the man asked, the ire in his voice rising.  
“No...no, you see, I went to see Doris Carseldine…..I wanted an assurance that I would still be getting my hush money..”  
“Oh don’t be so...vulgar, Gladys….the poor man’s dead.”  
“I don’t care about Roger Carseldine, Everett!” the woman screamed and something large smashed.  
“Doris told me that there is no money, Everett …..you stupid ass. None of you are going to get any money...it’s all gone!”  
Something large fell over, and the yelling continued.  
“No, no, no …...Roger promised me. The money’s there.”  
“You really are a gullible man, aren’t you, Everett?” The woman screeched. “I gave her a thorough going over. I got the truth out of her.”  
“You threatened Doris Carseldine?” the man asked.  
“Oh …..don’t you stand there and pretend to suddenly care about her. She’s just a tramp.”  
There was a pause in the eruptions then the woman added “and I did much more than threaten her.” A door slammed and silence fell on the house.

 

Milner turned a pale face to Foyle. “The tenth isn’t a date….” he began in a quiet voice.  
“It’s a portion..” Foyle completed. “...a portion of the profits.” The corner of Foyle’s mouth twitched.

They both began to walk briskly up to the front entry. 

Somewhere in the distance an engine started and within seconds a car was approaching them, a wide eyed woman at the wheel. Weaving all over the loose gravel drive, causing the small rocks to fly up, she sped past them. Both Foyle and Milner had to turn away and cover their faces with their hands to avoid an injury and, from behind, they heard Browne’s startled yelp.

“Constable Browne?” Foyle called as he shook the dust from his coat.  
“Yes, Sir?” came the reply, a wobble in his voice.  
“Alright?”  
“Yes, Sir.”  
“We won’t be long.”

 

A short man in an ill-fitting livery opened the door after just one knock and Foyle suspected that he may have been there for some time waiting for them to arrive.  
“My name’s Foyle….I’m a policeman.”  
“Thank you for coming so promptly” the man said as he stepped back from the open door. Before either Foyle or Milner could respond to his words, he added “the Colonel is waiting for you in the sitting room. This way.”

The butler took off at a brisk pace, leaving the open door behind him. Foyle jogged up the few stairs ahead of them while Milner quietly closed the door.

 

“Can I assume that you were a witness to my shameful debacle?” the Colonel asked, after his Butler announced their presence. His back was turned.  
“What debacle would that be?” Foyle asked.  
The colonel began to laugh and turned around, a whiskey tumbler in his hand, two fingers of amber liquid sloshing around in its base.  
“Fair question” the Colonel remarked and threw down a large mouthful. “I do seem to be having quite a few of them lately.”

The Butler coughed from the corner, his hand in a fist against his face. “Tea, gentleman?” he asked when at least some of the attention was on him.   
“Not for me, no” Foyle replied and Milner shook his head.

“My latest debacle,” the Colonel said, gesturing towards a horse-shoe of chairs in the centre of the room, “is to do with my wife...” he stated, taking another swig of whiskey, “….and my mistress.”  
“Mrs Doris Carseldine” Foyle stated, rather matter-of-factly. He’d been a policeman for many years and nothing much shocked him any more.  
“You think me a fool, Mr Foyle?”  
Ignoring the man’s question, Foyle simply sat back in his chair and hooked one leg over the other.

 

“Doris and I,” the Colonel began, “have been having an affair for almost a year now.” The neatly uniformed man took a seat opposite Foyle and leaned his head against the high back. “About two months ago, Doris asked me to get the materials to build a bridge...well, for her brother-in-law, actually. She said I could get away with it if I claimed that it was for an exercise for the Home Guard.”  
“And you did as she asked?” Foyle questioned, his fingers gliding over the tip of the arm rest.  
“Like a fool….yes.” He shifted his weight in the chair and crossed his legs. “I tried to put a stop to it later, though, Mr Foyle..”  
“You tried to cancel the order...yes I know, but, um….it was too late.”  
“Well, I cancelled the timber order...that wasn’t difficult but the pylons were already on their way.  
“And, um, how did Trevor Flaxton find out about the pylons?” Foyle asked.  
“Perhaps Doris told him. I’m not sure. I didn’t really ask too many questions.”  
The Colonel leaned his almost empty glass on the chair’s armrest and stared up to the ceiling.

“I heard they built the bridge” the Colonel commented, although he wasn’t making eye contact with either Foyle or Milner. “Goodness only knows how. They didn’t get any timber.”  
“Doris Carseldine added it to the order for the rail yard” Milner told him.  
“Ahhh….she’s quite the savvy business woman, you know” the Colonel said to Milner as he finally finished his drink. “And more than a little bit ruthless” he added with a raised finger.

 

Foyle let the silence descend, swirl a little and calm the flames. Then he went in with the big guns.  
“Did you know that Doris Carseldine was also having an affair with Timothy Patterson?”  
The Colonel dropped the glass tumbler from his fingers, letting it fall to the floor. It hit once, bounced up, hit the floor again and smashed into hundreds of tiny shards. He dropped his head into his hands and began to sob as his butler dutifully swept up the glass and tipped it all into a small metal bucket. 

“I told them,” the Colonel said, his voice cracking and breaking like an adolescent boy’s, “that I wanted out, that I wanted nothing more to do with their evil scheme but….”  
“….Doris Carseldine wouldn’t let you walk away?” Foyle asked, fingering the brim of his hat.  
“Roger Carseldine offered to pay to keep my silence...so long as I played the game and I am ever so ashamed to admit that I accepted his foul smelling bribe.”  
“A percentage of what they made when they sold the building materials? Is that what they offered?”  
The Colonel nodded and got up from his chair. He paced around the room, taking methodical and evenly measured steps with his hands clasped firmly behind his back.  
“Doris threatened to tell my wife if I spoke out….or if I went to the police” he admitted and pressed a hard stare at Foyle.   
“But now your wife….she knows?” Foyle asked, his voice softening a little. The man was, after all, a human being and deserved at least a little consideration.  
“She knows it all, Mr Foyle….so I’ve nothing left to lose.”  
Foyle shook his head, acknowledging both the man’s statement and his future predicament.

 

“Perhaps Sir Walter Scott was right, Mr Foyle” the Colonel said, his back to his visitors, his hand on the highly polished hearth, his head bowed. “Oh, what a tangled web we weave...”  
“When first we practise to deceive!” Foyle completed.


	10. Chapter 10

Foyle hmm’d and groaned as he once again studied the ledger. They’d been driving for over half an hour, winding their way towards Ninfield and Foyle had spent most of that time studying Carseldine’s words.  
“A fifth….” he pondered out loud. “A fifth of a total, but….why does he mention being watched?”  
“Mmmm” Milner added with a shake of the head, “Sorry Sir. I’m still none the wiser.”

5th MY BIDS WATCHED 

5th MAKE TO BLUFF 

10th WITH BOTTLES THEY PLACE BETS 

10th IN GAMBLING HOUSES CRIB 

10th FIRST FALSE ONE OF ACES FIT 

 

“Excuse me, Sir” Browne interupted.  
“Yes, Constable” Foyle grumbled, letting the hand holding the ledger drop into his lap in a show of frustration. “What is it?”  
“I heard you say that something is to be divided into fifths, that one fifth is to be given out.”  
“That’s right” Foyle told him, his speech precise, his voice clipped.  
“Well, ...why don’t you just take out a fifth, Sir?”  
“Constable,” Foyle said, closing his eyes, “unless you have something even approximating an intelligent comment….  
“Take out every fifth letter, Sir!” the young man blurted, then recoiled, simultaneously surprised at his own daring, and frightened of the likely rebuke.

“Oh!” Foyle gasped, turning an open stare to Browne, and Milner quickly fished around in his pocket for a pencil.  
“Here, Sir. This might help.” Milner handed the pencil to his boss’s open palm and leaned keenly up against the seat.

“One fifth,” Foyle read, then circled two letters from the code. “It just gives a D and a C.”  
“Perhaps if we continue, it will become clearer” Milner suggested.  
“One fifth….a T and an F.” Foyle tapped the end of the pencil against his chin.

“Are they someone’s initials?” Browne asked, his eyes fixed on the road.  
“Doris Carseldine!” Milner suddenly exclaimed, taking the Constable’s suggestion. “And Trevor Flaxton.”

“Right,..” Foyle continued, using the tip of the pencil to count the next group of letters. One tenth to EB and one tenth to GB.”  
“Everett and Gladys Boswick” Milner chimed. “The Colonel and his wife.”  
“And the last one is one tenth to …..EF”

 

“E, F” Milner parroted. “No, I’m sorry, Sir. That one has stumped me.”  
“Mmmm” Foyle grumbled. 

After a little while, Foyle turned to his still jittery driver. “You’ve had some good ideas of late, Browne” he said.  
“Have I, Sir?” Browne asked, his shoulders slipping back.   
“Absolutely…..got any more?”  
“I think I’ve used up all of my good ideas for now, Sir” the boy admitted, pulling up one side of his mouth. “But if I have any more, I’ll let you know.”  
Milner chuckled and put his hand on the boy’s shoulder.

 

This time, as they walked up the path towards Doris Carseldine’s little house, there were three of them.  
“You leave the talking to us” Foyle said sternly to the beaming young policeman.  
“Yes, Sir” Browne replied, proudly fixing the chin strap on his almost brand new helmet.  
“And do exactly what I ask.”  
“Without question, Sir.”

Milner reached out and grasped the brass knocker, giving it three firm taps.  
“Maybe nobody’s home, Mr Milner” Browne observed loudly.   
Foyle glared at the boy but resisted the temptation to send him back to the car with his tail between his legs.  
“Sorry, Sir” Browne mumbled, his voice lowered.

The person who opened the door was not Doris Carseldine but her son, Teddy.  
“Yes?” he moaned. His voice was weak and his skin was pale. Despite the youthful vigour of just a few hours ago, he was now finding it hard to simply stand – the door frame was bearing most of his weight.  
“Teddy” Foyle said, giving the lad a concerned look. “Not….feeling well?”  
“Nah” the lad replied, stumbling against the frame. “Feeling a bit crook.”

Foyle reached out a hand and caught the boy’s upper arm as he began to fall.  
“Let’s get you sitting down, hmm?”   
Milner and Browne followed as Foyle led the boy to a chair in the front room. Constable Browne stepped over to the simple kitchen and filled a glass with water.   
“That’s a pretty nasty cut on your leg, Teddy” Milner said, taking the glass from Browne and sliding it towards the lad.  
Foyle glanced down and saw a raw and angry looking gash on the lad’s shin, the skin around the wound shiny and sporting a distinctly purple hue.  
“Is that new, Teddy?” Foyle asked, sitting down next to the boy.  
Teddy nodded and took a sip from the glass.   
“I scratched it last night when I went down to the pub for Mum. I had to take the lantern. It was so dark.”  
“The Royal Oak, Teddy?” Milner asked, a hand on the boy’s arm. “There’s nothing left of it.”  
“I know” he moaned, obviously having difficulty holding up his head. “Mum sent me down to search for Roger’s money.”  
“Money? What money?”  
“The money that we owe all of these people” Teddy explained. “Roger promised so much money to people but …. when we found his tin, there was only about two shillings in it.”  
“And that’s not enough?” Milner asked  
“Not by half, Sir.”  
“Where’s your mother, Teddy?” Foyle asked, a hand on the lad’s shoulder to keep his attention. The boy’s eyes were beginning to close  
“She’s gone to look for more money…… mmm the ruins.”  
Foyle rose and wet a small towel under the tap in the kitchen. As he squeezed it out, he leaned over to speak to Browne.  
“Constable, we’re going to need you to drive this lad to the hospital back in Hastings. He’s very ill. You think you could manage that?”  
“Yes, Sir” Browne replied and gave Foyle a quick salute. “You can count on me, Sir”

 

Having sent Browne off in the car with young Teddy Flaxton, Milner and Foyle made their way on foot to what was left of the Royal Oak. Although it wasn’t far, just under a mile as the crow flies, the going was tough. Steep hills and uneven ground made for a very unpleasant journey, more so than Foyle had predicted. 

 

Rounding the corner on a walking path, the long straw coloured grass trampled flat from use, Milner suddenly tripped over a protruding tree root and came down heavily on his prosthetic.   
“Oooomph” he groaned and slapped a hand on his knee. He hopped, rather ungainly so, towards the tree and leaned up against it.  
“How can I help?” Foyle asked calmly, placing a hand on Milner’s shoulder and waiting for the younger man to open his eyes.  
“It’s alright, Sir” Milner replied, apologetically. Cursing, he pointed to the top of the tree root. “I just didn’t see it.”

“If it helps, I didn’t see it either.”  
“Yes, but you didn’t trip and stumble like a bumbling child” Milner grumbled, forming a fist and pumping it against the tree beside his hip.

“And neither did you.” Foyle slowly and quietly responded, ignoring his sergeant’s unusual outburst. He’d never seen Milner like this before. Perhaps he shouldn’t have sent the car away and assumed, selfishly, that his sergeant would just cope. A fiercely proud man, Milner would never have admitted, or even acknowledged, that such a task was beyond him but if Foyle were to say anything now would only embarrass and belittle the man he greatly respected. 

“We can either wait here a while..” Foyle proposed, stepping up to stand beside his sergeant, “...or we can get going. It’s just over that rise.” Foyle casually pointed to the crest about 100 yards ahead of them. “Up to you.” After a moment of silence, he added. “Browne’s meeting us with the car at the pub.”

Pushing himself up off the tree, Milner drew in a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Sir” he said.  
“What for?”  
“For my childish outburst. I haven’t had one of those …. in a while.” Milner’s cheeks glowed but Foyle pretended not to notice. 

“Not at all.” Foyle took a step to the side, letting his sergeant compose himself without an audience.   
“Let’s keep going, Sir” he said, a determined tone in his voice. “It’s not far.”  
“Sure?” Foyle asked, trying not to notice Milner’s uneven stance, the way he barely put any pressure on his left leg. If they’d have had the car with them, he’d have gone and fetched the walking cane they kept tucked under the front seat but as they were virtually stranded, it made more sense to press on.  
“Yes, Sir.”  
Foyle nodded, accepting Milner’s decision. He did, however, make sure that his own feet were the only ones that took on the long and tangled grass to the left of the trail.

 

Soon they arrived, both breathing heavily despite the chill in the air. 

Only one corner remained of the building, the rest of the construction laid in rubble on and around the foundations.

Mrs Carseldine stood, her legs hidden behind piles of broken bricks and warped timber. She either hadn’t seem them arrive or was ignoring the intrusion entirely, engrossed in her task.  
“Mrs Carseldine!” Foyle called as they approached the outer rim of strewn bricks and timber. “You need to come out of there. It’s not safe.” He put out his hand, ready to take hers and tentatively placed a foot onto a pile of timber.

 

“I have to find it, Mr Foyle” she muttered, using her chaffed and cut hands to shift bricks and re-arrange pieces of timber. “I can’t leave until I find it.” Her face contorted as she scanned the debris, her head turning rapidly from side to side, her hat long since forgotten.  
“Find what, Mrs Carseldine?” Foyle asked, inching closer to the frantic woman.  
“Roger’s money” she replied, although she barely stopped her exploration.

 

Foyle inched closer, narrowing the gap between them. Although he was careful where he was putting his feet, the rubble beneath him groaned. He reached out and touched her elbow.  
“It has to be here” she moaned, kicking a large piece of broken glass with the toe of her shoe.

 

“There is no money, Mrs Carseldine. Your broth-in-law lied….. to all of you.”  
Doris Carseldine’s head slowly rose. “How can you know that?”  
Foyle tapped his pocket, his finger tips making a hollow noise against the hard cover of the ledger. “It was all in code….he owed more money than he had to give away. I’m guessing that he didn’t want you, or anybody else to know.”

 

Foyle slid his hand down her arm and grabbed hold of her wrist, wrapping his fingers around firmly so that she couldn’t pull free. “Let’s get out of this, hmm?”  
Doris Carseldine nodded and pursed her lips. With her free hand pressing down on his shoulder, she stepped out of the mess, carefully placing her weight on a short piece of timber that sat above the wreckage.

Together they walked out, slowly picking out footholds as they went. When they finally made it out, Foyle led her over to a tree near the road. Sighing, she sat herself down and leaned back against the trunk.   
“Your son….” Foyle started, slipping a hand casually into his pocket.  
“My Teddy’s at home, Mr Foyle.”  
“Mmwell, he’s not actually” Foyle refuted. “My driver’s taken him to hospital. He’s a very sick young man.”  
Mrs Carseldine lifted her head, giving them both a wide eyed stare. Her jaw dropped.  
“I’d say he’s cut his leg on something here” Foyle stated, “and it’s got infected.”  
“Ohhh” she groaned and dropped her head into her hands. “I didn’t mean to get him involved. Trevor tried to get him out of it but, with Roger, once you were in, there was no getting out. ‘Eddy’s in for good, now’ he’d say.”

Milner looked across to Foyle, his head tilted in question.  
“‘Eddy’, Mrs Carseldine?” Foyle asked.  
“It’s what Roger called him. He said Teddy sounded childish.”

“E...F” Milner whispered. “Eddy Flaxton.”

 

The Wolseley suddenly appeared over the crest, the crunch of a missed gear announcing its arrival.  
“I think you’d better come with us, Mrs Carseldine.”


	11. Chapter 11

Sam held up the fingers of one hand, folding each one down as she counted.   
“So that’s Doris Carseldine” she said, tucking her thumb down to touch her palm, “Trevor Flaxton” she added, pressing her index finger over, “Colonel Boswick and his wife, and Roger Carseldine….although he’s dead so that doesn’t count.”

Sam’s face contorted, the corner of her mouth tracing a path across her face. She stared at her now closed fist.   
“Sir?” she asked, turning her upper body to face her boss.  
“Yes, Sam” Foyle responded, unable to hide his smile. He let his cup and saucer rest on his knee and waited.  
“You didn’t charge Teddy Flaxton, did you, Sir?” She drew in a deep breath, ready to give what Foyle knew would be a carefully chosen, though hastily delivered, dissertation on why she thought someone wasn’t guilty and why leniency should be applied.  
“No” he quickly replied, saving her the trouble – she looked tired. “Luckily for him, there was never any money to receive, so technically he wasn’t guilty of a crime….and he was only fifteen at the time. The law doesn’t see him as responsible for his own actions.”

 

She contentedly exhaled. “The poor boy” she said, shaking her head. “Only fifteen. He loses his father….and now he’s lost his mother, too.” She turned and let her hands flop into her lap. “It doesn’t seem fair, Sir.”  
“No. It doesn’t.”

Sam raised a hand and covered her mouth as she yawned, her eyes closing. Milner stood and refilled her cup, holding the saucer steady with one hand as he poured in milk from a small glass jug.

On her last visit, Mrs Stewart had brought a second suitcase with her. Although it was smaller than her usual one, it weighed much more and Foyle almost dislocated his shoulder when he collected her from the train station. When they arrive back at Steep Lane, finding Sam waiting rather impatiently in the kitchen, her foot on an upturned box, Mrs Stewart flicked open the locks to display all manner of home made delicacies – from pickled eggs in a jar to a little pot of strawberry jam – that had been donated by Rev Stewart’s parishioners after hearing about his daughter’s plight. Sam’s eyes went wide as she took in the spread. She oo’d and ahh’d, running her hands over the finery. When her hands touched on a packet of powdered milk, she looked up expectantly at Foyle. He’d used up the last of his own milk two days before and she’d had to endure, although not entirely silently, tea without milk. He hurried to put the kettle on and Mrs Stewart made all three of them weak but very milky tea. It was the last of that very milk that Milner now added to Sam’s cup.

 

Sam smiled her thanks to Milner and brought the full cup down to rest on her lap.  
“Constable Browne seemed to be….” Sam said, turning to look at Milner.  
“ …..taxing” Foyle quipped and adjusted his body’s position in the wide chair. As his fingers rubbed his temple he added “troublesome”.  
“I was going to say useful, Sir” Sam said, frowning. “He did help you to decipher the code in Mr Carseldine’s book..”  
“True.”  
“ ….and I bet Teddy Flaxton was rather grateful for a swift ride to the hospital, Sir.”  
“Well..”  
“I’d say,” she continued, her tone a little reproachful but not lacking in respect, “that he was...essential.” She covered another yawn with the tips of her fingers and, when her ability to speak returned, added “indispensable.”

 

Raising his eyebrows at her unintentional rebuke, Foyle stood and gathered her crutches from against the book case. He stretched his fingers to hold both in one hand, keeping his other hand free. “What little ….and rather infrequent help …. he did offer,” Foyle said as he stepped towards her, “we were very grateful for.” He passed her the crutches then placed one hand under her right elbow, gently helping her to stand. “Either way,” he quietly added, stepping back to let her find her balance, “we’ll both be very happy to have you back, Sam.”

Sam’s face contorted and she pressed her lips together. As her brow furrowed, Foyle immediately stepped forward and touched her elbow. “What’s wrong?” He searched her face, dipping his head to catch her eye. “Pain, Sam?”  
“No” she quickly replied and shook her head. “No, it’s just that, um….”  
“I wasn’t trying to rush you, Sam” he said, hoping that he hadn’t put her under any unrealistic expectation to speed up her own recovery just to placate his surly attitude. After all, the whole reason for him having her here was to make her recovery as smooth and carefree as possible, not add to her troubles. “I’m sorry.”

 

Sam shook her head again and this time added a smile. “Please, Sir, don’t be sorry. You’ve been more than generous ...and accommodating. It’s just that I’ve been thinking...”  
Sensing the change, he cheekily said “what, again?” His mouth twitched.  
She smiled back and dipped her head as the colour in her cheeks rose. “I just need to make a decision, Sir, and …..it’s not an easy one...”  
“Can I help?” he asked, tilting his head.  
“No, I’m afraid you can’t, Sir. No one can. This one’s all up to me, I’m afraid.”  
Taking a moment to study her face, he nodded. “I often find that I make better decisions…. in the morning ….after I’ve had a good rest.”  
“I agree, Sir.”

Smiling, he walked beside her as they made their way slowly to the small bedroom beside the kitchen – a throwback to a time when such a house would have had, at the very least, a chambermaid to accommodate.  
“Good night, Sam” Milner called as Foyle held open the living room door for her.  
“Good night, Milner.”


	12. Chapter 12

Four months later….

Foyle looked up into the sky as he approached the steps of his house, studying the clouds as they swirled around. Considering how cold Autumn had been, he was surprised that they hadn’t had any snowfall as yet. January was usually accompanied by a heavy covering of white but today the streets were awash with colour and the air was clear and crisp.

Most of the church pews were empty this morning, only a scattering of familiar faces and a handful of new ones but what was most alarming was the growing number of widows in the second to last pew. He’d offered his condolences to Mrs Marshall, the newest addition to the eclectic group, over a cup of over-stewed tea after the service. He’d heard about Johnathan Marshall’s death on Wednesday from Constable Browne – Mrs Marshall, apparently, being a distant relative of his mother’s.

 

The cold air had made his fingers numb. Rosalind would have chided him for not wearing gloves but the fuss of having to take them on and off made him shrug off the need. He fumbled with his house key and, after the third attempt, unlocked the door.

 

As he entered his front hall an unusual sight greeted him. On the coat rack, tucked behind his corduroy house coat, was a dark blue flying jacket, the thick lamb’s wool collar making it hang awkwardly. He grinned, then a full faced smile followed.

 

“Andrew!” he called, excitedly, although his voice wasn’t loud. Pushing open the living room door he spotted a body laying on the long settee, a tartan rug draped over it’s shoulders. By the slow rise and fall of the chest, Foyle knew that his son was asleep but the frequent twitching of his feet told him that wakefulness was not far off. He slowly, and almost silently, closed the door and walked the long way to the kitchen.

 

By the time he’d produced the tea tray and brought it to the living room his son was stirring. Andrew sat up and yawned, not bothering to cover his mouth – his mother would have been aghast.  
“Andrew” Foyle simply said and slid the tray onto a small table that he’d dragged over with his foot.  
“Hello, Dad.” The rug, the same one that used to cover him completely when he was a lad but now barely stretched from shoulder to knee, slipped off the settee and fell to the floor with a flump. Foyle took a step forward and picked it up. Folding it over once, he draped it back over his son’s shoulders in a shawl-like manner. Last night’s fire needed re-lighting, the room uncomfortably chilled by its absence. For now, though, a blanket would have to suffice.

“When did you get in?” Foyle asked, returning to the tray.  
Andrew flipped his wrist and blinked a few times as his eyes focused. “About eight” he finally said.  
Foyle nodded and poured out the two cups. He’d deliberately chosen the white set with the small painted red rose on the edge, one Rosalind would have preferred for such an occasion.   
“Church?” Andrew asked, accepting the cup and saucer his father offered.  
“Mmmm.” He considered telling his son about those that he’d spoken to, and heard about, both during and after the service but stopped himself. Not the time – perhaps it never would be.  
“Got much leave?” Foyle asked, turning to see to the fire. The pile of logs was getting low, he noticed, and so he made a mental note to go outside later today and swing his axe.  
“A couple of days” Andrew said after he’d taken quite a rough swallow of his tea. “Gotta be back by roll call on Tuesday evening. Sorry it’s not much.”  
“No….No, I’m happy to get any time with you, son” Foyle said, crouching in front of the grate, a small piece of kindling in his hand acting as a taper. “And I do know that you don’t get much of a choice in the matter.”

“Actually I was lucky to get this time off …...we’ve all been a bit crook lately...”  
Foyle sprang back up, rising so quickly that he had to grab onto the edge of the fireplace to steady himself until his head stopped spinning. “You’ve not been well?”  
Andrew shook his head and then upended his cup into his mouth, the edge not even touching his lip. Since when did he become so uncivilised?  
“We’ve all had some sort of flu, the doc said. I was down for about a week.”  
Andrew let himself flop back in the seat and crossed his ankles on the foot stool in front of him. The same stool that Foyle had dragged out of a cupboard in the basement for Sam while she was here. He was yet to put it away even though she’d been gone from his house for weeks….months.

 

“And you’re alright now?” Foyle asked his son in a quiet yet expectant voice.  
“I think so” Andrew replied. “I feel alright.”

The fire had warmed the room just a little. Andrew pulled off the rug, dropping it in a heap on the seat beside him, the edge of it dragging on the dusty floor below.  
“How have you been, Dad?”   
Andrew stood and helped himself to a second cup. Foyle watched him drop in two spoonfuls of sugar into the brew and stir it roughly. 

Of course Foyle had told Andrew in a letter that both he and Sam had been present during a raid over Three Oaks but, unwilling to cause his son too much worry, he’d left out most of the details and almost all of the guilt, fear and anxiety. In truth Foyle had only told him in case he had heard from another source and begun to worry. Better for Andrew to hear a sanitised version of events from his father than an over dramatised account from a stranger.

“Haven’t been caught in any more raids?” Andrew’s smile was a cheeky one, child-like.  
“No.”

Foyle knew what question was coming next but expecting something and wanting it to happen are two very different things. He drained what was left of his tea and slid the cup onto the small table beside him. He waited.  
“How’s Sam?” Andrew asked as he flopped himself down onto the settee again. He toed off his shoes and casually put his feet back onto the stool, crossing his ankles.

Foyle took a deep breath and touched his tongue to his top lip. 

“Well” he began, flicking a glance to his son before continuing, “in her last letter, she seemed to be well …… and quite pleased.”  
“A letter?” Andrew asked, his face showing his puzzlement. “Is she on leave?”  
“Nooo. She, uh, is living up in Lyminster now. I have a new driver….Browne.”

Andrew suddenly sat up and turned to look straight at his father.   
“Oh my God, Dad! You didn’t send her home …..to her parents, did you?”  
Andrew’s lower jaw dropped slightly as his eyes narrowed.  
“I did nothing of the sort.” Foyle linked his hands together in his lap and crossed his legs.  
“Then, she …..just left?” Andrew’s eyes still glared.  
“She, um, …..got married. 

The air suddenly escaped from Andrew’s lungs and he seemed to deflate as he sank back into the chair.  
“Mmmmarried?” he asked with what little air was left in his chest.   
“Mmmm. About six weeks ago. Nice chap. They’re living near her parents. Her husband is, um, studying to be her father’s Curate.”  
“You didn’t mention anything” Andrew said in a small voice as he eyes stared blankly at the wall across from him. His palms sat lifelessly on the settee beside him. “….your last letter.”  
“Well,” Foyle replied, pausing to draw in a deep breath, “it wasn’t my story to tell, was it?”  
Andrew’s head began to rock back and forth, his hair brushing against the back of the seat.   
“No. You’re right, Dad. It’s none of my business, really.”

 

It could have been your business, Andrew, Foyle wanted to scream but ...of course he didn’t. It would have benefited no one to say such a thing. And he would have sounded no better than a pompous fool.

“So….what’s his name?” Andrew asked, running a hand through his hair.  
“Hmm?” Foyle pulled at the knot on his tie.  
“This chap that Sam’s…..?”  
“Grimshaw…..Daniel Grimshaw” Foyle quickly muttered, saving his son from uttering the final part of the sentence.

Andrew’s breathing seemed to be laboured and he had begun to stare at the wall again.  
“Another cup?” Foyle asked, nodding to Andrew’s teacup.  
“Got anything stronger?”  
Foyle grimaced and looked at the small clock on the mantle. “Bit, um...bit early, isn’t it?”  
Andrew gave one quick shake of his head. Foyle rose and stepped over to his liquor tray. He poured out a finger of bourbon, anything else was far beyond even his reach at the moment, and added a decent splash of water.

“Is she happy?” Andrew asked quietly, taking the tumbler his father offered. 

It was an odd question, Foyle thought, especially from someone who had had the power of that happiness in his own grasp not so long ago, but threw it away. And did he really think that Samantha Stewart would marry someone that she wasn’t truly in love with?

“She is….very much so” Foyle replied, sitting back down in his chair. He loosened his tie and unbuttoned his waistcoat. “Her father performed the marriage” he explained, running a hand over his tie. “And, uh, I gave her away.”  
“Ooohhh” was all Andrew could manage, his cheeks beginning to glow although Foyle couldn’t tell if it was the alcohol, the warmth of the fire, or the storm that he supposed was brewing in his son’s belly. Perhaps it was a good time to bring an end to this conversation for now. Surely there was something better for them to speak of.

 

“How do you know she’s happy, Dad?” There was a wistful tone in Andrew’s voice, and he stared at his hands which were, by now, linked together in his lap.  
Foyle debated the wisdom of giving the truthful answer to his son’s question but, as he’d never known a lie to benefit anyone in the longer term, he resolved to be honest.  
“I know she’s happy because she told me….in her last letter. In fact, she told me that, uh, she’s expecting. Due in the summer.”

Andrew didn’t move, he just breathed. Words seemed to have escaped his ability for the moment so Foyle just waited. He had time.

 

“Then...I’m happy, too, Dad” he finally whispered. “For her I mean.” Andrew turned his head to look at his father. “I know it sounds….trite, Dad but if Sam’s happy then…..so am I.”  
Foyle gave one nod.

Andrew’s inner turmoil seemed to disperse, his eyes lost their haze and even the colour came back to his cheeks. He smiled – it was small but genuine.  
“Will you visit her, Dad….when the baby’s born, I mean?”  
“Well, I really ought to” Foyle admitted, his hand still touching his tie. “I’m to be the child’s Godfather.”

 

End.


End file.
